CARACAS, Tuesday October 20, 2009 | Update
Economy
The Venezuelan government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) signed on Tuesday a USD 800 million loan to finance part of the Manuel Piar hydroelectric power plant, said Alí Rodríguez, the Minister of Economy and Finance.
The instrument, approved by the IADB Board of Directors on July 29, 2009, was initialed at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance by IADB representatives and officials from the National Electricity Corporation (Corpoelec).
Rodríguez thanked the IADB for the financing. He recalled that this project is part of other loans previously granted for the same project involving a total contribution "above USD 1.75 billion," Efe reported.
"It is the largest loan that the IADB is currently granting to any country," the official stressed.
The Manuel Piar hydroelectric power plant is the last hydroelectric development project in the Lower Caroní River Basin.
10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.