More than 50 projects implemented after 25 years of cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the AFD Group

This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (December 2023).- A 25-year track record of supporting the implementation of collective transportation and urban development projects, health and social protection, environment and agriculture, renewable energy, higher education and vocational training, has positioned the AFD Group as a key actor in international cooperation and as the main bilateral lender in the Dominican Republic.

Some 350,000 daily trips thanks to the construction and extension of the Santo Domingo metro and cable car, 10,250 hectares reforested in the central mountain range through the Sierra Plan, nearly 10,000 students of modest origin supported with soft educational loans, more than 20,000 technicians trained in hospitality and gastronomy at the INFOTEP school in Higüey, 160 GWh generated per year by the PECASA wind farm, allowing electricity to be provided to 150,000 homes in the province of Monte Cristi and the support of more than 1,900 cocoa producers, are some of the Figures that translate the concrete impacts of the projects led by the AFD Group, together with its Dominican partners from the public and private sectors.

In this dynamic context, the AFD Group, composed of the French Development Agency, in charge of public sector financing, and its two subsidiaries, Proparco and Expertise France, dedicated to private sector financing and technical cooperation respectively, celebrated its 25 years of action in the Dominican Republic.

In this sense, a meeting was held led by Ministers Joel Santos, of the Presidency, and Pável Isa Contreras of Economy, Planning and Development, representing the Dominican State.

Minister Isa Contreras pointed out the meeting as a significant milestone in relations between the Dominican Republic and France, to celebrate the achievements and further strengthen the fraternal ties between both nations.

“A crucial moment in the relations between the governments of France and the Dominican Republic was the signing of the French Cooperation Roadmap 2021-2023, with the aim of defining priority initiatives for sustainable and resilient development, which has allowed the execution, from 2020 to date, a portfolio of Dominican-French cooperation projects

adds up to a total of more than one hundred and sixty-five million euros (US$165,000,000.00), of which one hundred and thirty million (US$130,000,000.00) correspond to financing and thirty-five million (US$35,000,000.00) to non-reimbursable cooperation. With these figures, France positions itself as the strategic partner that finances the most development cooperation projects, emphasized Minister Isa Contreras.

The meeting was also led by Bertrand Walckenaer, deputy director general of the AFD based at the headquarters in Paris; Virginie Diaz, director of the AFD; Valéry Vicini, regional director of Proparco and Emilie Daniel-Garcia, mission manager of Expertise France.