The new president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration CABEI, Gisela Sánchez, in reports to the Costa Rican media ‘Divergentes’, that Nicaragua and El Salvador “have already exceeded the limits of the credits they can receive”, and that the support to these countries is They must slow down to achieve a more diversified and balanced portfolio.
Sánchez, who assumed the presidency of CABEI in December of last year, said that there are action plans to regain limits and ensure the diversification of the portfolio.
The inequality in the portfolio, presented as excess credits to El Salvador without real support, was criticized during the presidency of Honduran Dante Mossi, a close ally of Nayib Bukele’s government, without having much echo in CABEI.
CABEI President Gisela Sánchez pointed out that CABEI’s loan portfolio has a concentration of a little more than 25% in El Salvador, followed by Nicaragua with 22%; in third place Honduras with 17%; then Costa Rica with 10% and Guatemala with 5%. The last two countries are the ones with the best economic growth in the area and have the greatest liquidity.
In addition to the imbalance in the credit portfolio presented by loans to El Salvador, the country with the lowest growth in all of Central America, Sánchez considers that Nicaragua governed by Ortega and Murillo was the most emblematic case: Nicaraguan opponents insisted that CABEI “has has been and continues to be one of the greatest pillars of support for the dictatorship, by continuing to approve disbursements to the State of Nicaragua with $500 million dollars in projects since 2017, even though the country’s population is smaller than that of Guatemala and Honduras, but it has received almost 26% of the bank’s loan portfolio.
Sánchez also maintained that he has “a critical reading of the past” of CABEI. However, rather than agreeing or disagreeing, he said he should focus on the present and the future.
Sánchez affirmed that, despite the announcement of the brake on loans to El Salvador and Nicaragua, he has found “receptivity.”
The only viable alternative that the new CABEI president finds to be able to maintain loans to El Salvador is to make the bank grow.
“It is the only way, otherwise we would be deteriorating or concentrating the portfolio more and they also want a long-term bank,” he explained.