Enhancing India CARIFORUM Economic Relations and Prospects for Cooperation

Exterior S.A. (BICE), Argentina; Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI/ BCIE), Honduras; Caribbean Association of Industry & Commerce, Trinidad & Tobago; Banco Mercantil (Banco Universal) C.A., Venezuela among others, as well as Indian missions in the region. Financing and other programmes of India Exim Bank in the LAC Region Lines of Credit To enhance bilateral trade and investment relations with partner countries, and as a part of its financing programmes, India Exim Bank has extended several Lines of Credit (LOCs) to overseas sovereign governments or their nominated agencies, national or regional development banks, overseas financial institutions, commercial banks abroad, and other select overseas entities, to enable buyers in those countries to import developmental and infrastructure projects, equipment, goods and services from India, on medium and long term credit basis. These LOCs offer a risk-free financing option to the Indian exporting companies, while helping them penetrate new markets, enhance their export volumes in the overseas market, and demonstrate project execution capabilities. The LOCs are aimed at financing and catalysing Indian exports by way of financing key projects of national importance to the borrower countries, such as agriculture and irrigation development, development of various small and medium enterprises, upgradation of factories, development of railways and related infrastructure, projects for transmission lines and substations, rehabilitation and improvement of water supply system, among others. To promote India’s trade and economic relations with developing countries, the Government of India launched the Indian Development and Economic Assistance Scheme (IDEAS) – with the objective of sharing India’s development experience through capacity building and skill transfer, trade, and infrastructure development, by extending concessional LOC’s routed through India Exim Bank, to developing partner countries, towards creating socio-economic benefits in the partner country. The LOC programme has gained considerable recognition abroad, as it enables the LOC recipient countries access to much needed large scale developmental and infrastructure projects, on concessional and deferred credit terms. As on March 31, 2022, the total number of operative LOCs to the LAC region stood at 33, extended to 6 countries namely Bolivia, Cuba, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Suriname, for supporting projects such as setting up of multi-speciality hospitals, irrigation, export of machinery and equipment, and amounted to US$ 738.3 million (Table 15) .

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Enhancing India-CARIFORUM Economic Relations and Prospects for Cooperation