WB Plans $2b Green Bonds for Peru

The financial arm of the World Bank is considering issuing about $2 billion in bonds to finance environmentally friendly projects in Peru, the nation’s economy minister said late Saturday, CNBC reported. Alfredo Thorne, during a state television program in which President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski interviews various personalities, said the bonds would be used to finance projects such as reforestation in the Amazon. The International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, “is thinking of doing an emission of green bonds here, and that’s going to give us $2 billion, more or less,” Thorne said, without giving details of the issuance. Thorne said that while Peru has not yet developed a reforestation industry, it is receiving help from the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank and Norway. Green bonds, a type of instrument used to raise funds to tackle environmental problems, have had a slow start in Latin America. The IFC issued the first green bond in the Peruvian market in 2014 for 42 million soles ($12.8 million).