Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos has announced an investment program of $360 million in the Caribbean coastal region on Monday.
At the conclusion in Cartagena of Monday’s meeting with the OCAD, the body responsible for defining investment projects, the president announced that the Caribbean region would get 54 projects for roads water, tourism, agriculture, health, housing and ICT among others.
“Today we approved 54 projects with a value of $285 million. Added to this are other projects totalling $75 million. This adds up to $360 million. But to this we have to add a series of projects that when counted the total value is more than $560 million,” said the president according to a statement on his website.
Santos considered that the participants of the OCAD in the Caribbean region had taken an historic decision that will have “a direct impact and very positive for the welfare of all the Caribbean cities in Colombia.”
“Caribbean OCAD projects financed with royalties from increased Colombian exports. More jobs,” said the president on his Twitter account.
Santos said that the resources were ready and in the next weeks each project will “see a very important flow of resources towards this region over the next 15 days which we hope will go to fund the start of these projects,” said the president.
The sectors benefitting from the meeting of the Caribbean Region OCAD are; transport with 23 projects at $180 million; water and sewage with 11 projects at $38 million; agriculture with 11 projects at $18 million; culture and tourism with four projects at $17 million; exhibition venues with two projects at $12 million; technology with two projects at $6 million; housing and social initiatives with one project at $6 million; women and infants with one project at $4.5 million; health with two projects at $1.6 million; risk management with one project at $780,000.
The depatments receiving the most funding are; Magdalena for road improvements; Sucre which will have 28 projects, the majority of which are infrastructure; and Atlantico with projects in water and sewage, agriculture tourism and social inclusion.