This August, Erika Sylva took a long flight around the world. The reason? Ecuador’s health minister was travelling to Beijing to buy $50m worth of Chinese medical equipment for Ecuador’s health system. Her spending came out of a $2bn credit China made available to Ecuador the year before.
Separately, but at the same time, the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $5m equity investment in a Mexican government sponsored venture capital fund that will provide seed capital and strategic advice to small- and medium-size Mexican companies.
Although the sums are small, these contrasting examples – one a government-to-government loan tied to purchases of Chinese goods, the other a multilateral initiative to foster private Mexican enterprise – show how development banking is changing globally, especially in Latin America.