Inter-American Development Bank or IDB approves grant for Northern Industrial Park in Haiti

The Inter-American Development Bank announced the approval of a $55 million grant to help finance the construction of an industrial park designed to employ tens of thousands of workers in northern Haiti.

The Northern Industrial Park (NIP) will be owned by the Haitian state, which has another manufacturing facility in Port-au-Prince. In partnership with the U.S. Department of State, the IDB has been helping Haiti attract tenants to the new park. One of them, South Korean textile manufacturer Sae-A, expects to hire as many as 20,000 workers and build the country’s first textile mill.

The IDB grant will contribute to the first phase of construction on a 250-hectare site near the town of Caracol, between the cities of Cap Haitien and Ouanaminthe. The resources will finance diverse investments within the perimeter of the park, such as factory buildings, internal roads, water storage tanks and waste water treatment plants.

The U.S. government will support the NIP project by building a power plant to supply electricity to the industrial park and to surrounding communities, as well as by investing in housing for factory workers and their families and improvements to port facilities in Cap Haitien.

The project will be carried out by a technical execution unit of Haiti’s Ministry of Economy and Finance that successfully completed more than 50 basic infrastructure projects under a previous IDB-financed operation. Construction inside the NIP’s perimeter could start later this summer and the first phase could be finished by the first quarter of 2012.

Once completed, the NIP could host as many as 50,000 workers. Tenants seeking to take advantage of U.S. trade preferences for Haiti-based manufacturers will have to abide by local laws and international best practices regarding labor conditions. The industrial park is also likely to generate tens of thousands of additional jobs in ancillary activities, such as transportation, shipping or food services.

The NIP project will be the keystone of a broader regional development plan including investments to boost agricultural production, develop value chains involving local small and medium-size companies and promote tourism based on northern Haiti’s cultural attractions.

The IDB is Haiti’s leading multilateral donor. Since last year’s earthquake it has approved more than $340 million in new grants and disbursed $255 million to support reconstruction and long-term development projects principally in transportation, water and sanitation, energy, agriculture and education.