*Nicaragua’s central bank (BCN) has released new figures on foreign cooperation in 2023 which show that this totalled US$813.7m in 2023, down from US$967.6m in 2022. Of the total 95.2% went to the public sector and the rest to the private sector. According to the same figures, loans accounted for 90.2% of the total, with donations making up the remainder. As regards sources, 93.4% of foreign cooperation (US$759.8m) came from multilateral funds (up 6.7% on 2022) while bilateral cooperation totalled US$53.9m, a 78.9% drop on 2022. The main sources of funds were: the Central American development bank (BCIE) which provided US$549.2m, the World Bank (US$47.7m), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (US$46.6m) among others. As regards sources of bilateral cooperation, the Netherlands was Nicaragua’s main partner, accounting for US$14.3m (all loans), followed by Russia which provided US$9.4m, also in loans. The construction sector attracted the most resources (US$345.3m) followed by electricity, gas and water (US$158.5m), health, education and community sources (US$177.8m), and public administration (US$81.1m).
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