At the headquarters of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) of the Italian government, the Secretary of Development Planning and Federal Competitiveness of the Ministry of Economy, Jorge Neme, met with the president and delegate director of the CDP, Dario Scannapieco, and with the president of Simet, consultant of the bank itself, Pasquale Salzano, to restart operations with Argentina to finance investment projects in the development of new irrigation areas.
The Cassa Depositi e Prestiti channels all the resources of the European Union for investment, development and cooperation. Jorge Neme explained that “the president of the CDP expressed the intention to reopen a line of credit and financing with Argentina” since “they have new funds from the European Union destined to mitigate the impacts of climate change, promote sustainable agriculture and projects friendly with the environment and in that sense they are prioritizing Argentina within Latin America”.
Jorge Neme indicated that “an opportunity for productive development is opening up for Argentina” and commented that the Italian banking organization has a fluid relationship with the FAO and IFAD, United Nations organizations with which Argentina already has various lines of work. Neme explained that “we agreed on an investment line for the development of new irrigation areas to give sustainability to a new generation agriculture.”
For the development of this new line of financing, the Italian organization will work, at the proposal of Secretary Neme, together with the BICE Investment and Foreign Trade Bank.
Among the results of the tour, the agreements with the authorities of the Saudi Development Fund to advance with investments in energy and irrigation projects stand out, as well as the advances with the authorities of the FAO, where it was defined to advance in the formulation of new projects irrigation, which are added to those already being managed by the Secretariat for Development Planning and Federal Competitiveness.
Secretary Neme explained by way of balance of his tour that “these steps together with the agreements reached with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and with the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti are new tools that I will present to Minister Sergio Massa to implement for the benefit of the different actors that make up the agro-industrial sector of Argentina”.
Neme indicated that “for there to be a substantial growth of the agricultural product we have to plan an Argentina that can irrigate more than 5 million hectares.” The official added that “each hectare under irrigation means increasing productivity three times when it comes to extensive crops, and when it comes to intensive crops it is a great generator of employment and high-value productions.”
Neme valued the resumption of talks with the official banks in Europe, and explained that the reestablishment of this important source of financing with Spanish and Italian banks “is the effect of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, as well as the result of the management of the policy led by Minister Sergio Massa: ordering the public accounts, confirming the agreement with the Paris Club, and promoting the reduction of the fiscal deficit without affecting the level of economic activity”.
