IDB to host Regional Trade, Foreign Ministers Forum in Los Angeles

President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mauricio Claver-Carone, has said the IDB will be hosting a trade and investment forum for the Americas on June 7, 2022, in which would be brought together regional Trade and Foreign Affairs Ministers and Chief Executives from leading global companies to discuss the following: investment and regional supply chains, sustainable trade and climate change, and trade and the digital economy in the hemisphere.

The event, to be held in Los Angeles, California, aligns with Vision 2025, the IDB’s roadmap for accelerating inclusive and sustainable growth, including through better leveraging of the Private Sector.
As the only international financial institution that is actively financing nearshoring, the IDB aims to use the Trade and Investment Forum as an opportunity to further help Latin America and the Caribbean seize today’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase regional integration and participation in the current global realignment of supply chains.
“We are prioritising action, and look forward to deepening our engagement so we can fully use the expanded nearshoring toolkit we developed to help countries and companies take advantage of the regionalisation of supply chains. This forum can serve as a bedrock for results. Forums like this, which unite the Public and Private Sectors, reflect our vision for a truly 21st-century IDB. Now is the moment to capitalise on sectors that can jumpstart economies and mobilise critical private capital for co-financing and investment,” said IDB President Claver-Carone.
In gathering leading business executives alongside senior Government officials, the IDB seeks to expand the historic Public-Private collaboration it has fostered over the past year, and support matchmaking to enable greater investment in key sectors across the region.
The IDB has said this forum demonstrates the potential of its new value proposition to build synergies between the Public and Private Sectors that lead to economic growth and social inclusion.
The IDB has noted that its mission to improve lives and its role as the premier development finance institution for Latin America and the Caribbean have never been more important. And it is committed to helping its 26 borrowing member countries overcome ongoing pandemic setbacks, historic supply-chain disruptions, and the fallout from Russia’s war against Ukraine.
According to the IDB, its priority is to deliver measurable results in response to these challenges, and it is fulfilling its commitment to better serve both lower- and higher-income countries.
Against this backdrop, its President added, “We look forward to building on our diverse and ambitious initiatives, especially after what will undoubtedly be productive discussions with regional leaders at the Ninth Summit of the Americas. While the upcoming Summit is taking place at an inflection point in the region’s history, because of its high-stakes political backdrop and our institutional commitment to remain apolitical, we are carefully tailoring our activities in connection to the event.”
The IDB, further, has said it would continue to help the region combat climate change; create jobs; institutionalise equality; forge more transparent, digitalised economies; improve healthcare systems; and invest in the kind of reliable, resilient, regional supply chains needed to make the countries of the Americas stronger and more secure.
This work, it highlighted, builds on a standard-setting year in 2021, when the IDB achieved a record $23.4B in new financing approvals, commitments, and Private-Sector mobilisations. The bank further said it has increased the share of operations in small and vulnerable countries to a record 40 per cent, while making the largest direct investment in gender equality in its history – more than $780 million.
Importantly, it noted that its Private-Sector arm, IDB Invest, achieved a one-to-one mobilisation ratio for long-term investments; meaning that, for every dollar IDB Invest puts into a deal, a private investor matched it. That was a nearly 50 per cent increase over the previous year.
Additionally, the IDB said it launched some of the most innovative projects and market-friendly financial tools of any international finance institution, reflecting a determination to better leverage Private-Sector capabilities.
Latin America and the Caribbean face both ongoing pandemic challenges and an unprecedented combination of global problems, including rampant inflation, rising interest rates, supply-chain bottlenecks, and the global impacts of war, including a growing food and energy crisis.
Current forecasts indicate the region will grow less than 3 per cent this year. Even so, the IDB said, it is confident that Latin America and the Caribbean can surpass expectations.
“I believe the region can prove the forecasters wrong and do something similar to what it did in 2021, when it grew nearly 7 per cent. We are working for that outcome every day, guided by our mission of improving lives across the Americas,” said President Claver-Carone.