LatinNews Daily - 07 July 2021

* El Salvador’s 84-member unicameral national legislature has approved US$554.8m worth of loans from the Central American development bank (BCIE) for road infrastructure, education and security. The biggest loan (US$245.8m) will go on a project for the 'Los Chorros' section of the Pan-American Highway, aimed at solving traffic congestion. The initiative involves constructing a new viaduct and expanding an existing highway in La Libertad department. A congress press release notes that that the project aims to promote trade and will benefit 2.2m Salvadoreans as well as the textile sector given there are some 200 maquilas located in Colón municipality, La Libertad department. It notes that the new road will reduce transit time from the current two hours to just 20 minutes. Also approved was a US$200m loan to finance an education programme ‘Mi Nueva Escuela’ which contemplates a “radical transformation of the education system, from infrastructure to new pedagogical methodologies” and a US$109m loan for the third phase of the government’s security plan ‘Plan Control Territorial’, to go on infrastructure, new equipment such as drones, bullet-proof vests, a helicopter, and a boat.

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