Paraguay to upgrade rural roads with IDB support

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is to loan Paraguay US$ 66 million as part of aUS$ 170 million project to improve its rural roads.

The loan will support the second five-year phase of Paraguay's National Rural Roads Program (NRRP), which aims to upgrade a substantial part of the priority rural roads network.

The money will support improvements and maintenance activities on 6000 km of rural roads in the eastern part of the country that are used mainly to transport agricultural products.

The second phase of the NRRP will also see rehabilitation or replacement of about 2.3 km of rundown small wooden bridges by reinforced concrete bridges, and stone surfacing of roughly 500 urban or semi urban streets in communities located within the project area.

Carried out by Paraguay's Ministry of Public Works and Communications, the total cost of US$ 170 million will see local counterpart funds total US$ 25.4 million, alongside US$ 79 million in co-financing.

Since 1994, the IDB has helped countries build more than 730000 km of roads.