SELA to promote regional guarantee system to facilitate credit access for Central American SMEs at Costa Rica meeting

Caracas, 27 August 2015.- The city of San José, in Costa Rica, will host on 3 and 4 September the “Seminar on Financing and Guarantees to support SMEs in Central America”, an event organized by the Permanent Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) which seeks to make strides towards the creation and consolidation of guarantee systems to facilitate access to credit for small and medium-sized enterprises, so as to contribute to their development and productive management.

This activity has been organized jointly with the General Direction to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (DIGEPYME) of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade of the Republic of Costa Rica. Guests invited to the seminar included the governmental focal points for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the Member States of SELA. Particularly, officials from the organizations of the Central American subregion, as well as representatives of business and financial institutions and experts from the various countries of the region are expected to attend the event.

The objective of the seminar is to promote the creation of national financing and guarantee systems, with a view to establishing a Regional Guarantee System for Central America, and foster training of public and private officials in subjects related to the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises.

In order to consider the prospects of creating such Regional Guarantee System in Central America, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA is carrying out a pre-feasibility study that will be submitted for consideration and evaluation by participants in the seminar, to subsequently include their contributions, suggestions and viewpoints.

The Permanent Secretariat has dealt with this subject on several occasions at technical meetings of SELA, with the purpose of promoting the creation of financing mechanisms that ensure swift access to credits for SMEs, in addition to supporting the conduction of Ibero-American Forums on Financing and Guarantee Systems for SMEs, which are held on a yearly basis.

Within this context, in 2013, SELA organized and conducted the “Seminar-Workshop on Guarantee Systems in Central America”, with the support of the Development Bank of El Salvador (BANDESAL), in San Salvador. Moreover, for the Caribbean subregion, the Permanent Secretariat organized, with the support of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the "Seminar-Workshop on Credit Guarantee Systems in the Caribbean”, which was held in Georgetown, Guyana, in 2014.

In 2015, the Permanent Secretariat plans to conduct the “Seminar on Financing and Guarantees to support SMEs in the Caribbean”, to be held tentatively in Jamaica.

With these activities, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA contributes to the debate on the creation of Regional Guarantee Systems in order to facilitate access to credit for SMEs in Central America and the Caribbean.