The Colombian Government reinforces its commitment to infrastructure development making it the socioeconomic backbone of the country.
The new 5G program is a personal bet of both President Ivan Duque and Manuel Felipe Gutiérrez, ANI Chief Executive Officer, to boost the economy and promote regional and sectoral integration in the country through a new infrastructure investment plan.
5G is a multimodal program that will comprise in a first wave, six road projects, two fluvial, one railway and three airports. The Government trusts that this multimodality will make the sector more efficient, reducing logistics time and costs, and thus increasing the competitiveness indicators against other countries.
The program is less ambitious than 4G and has set itself the goal of making projects attractive to investors, streamlining investment and tailoring it to end-user needs. This will allow 5G to achieve 4G standards but with a significant reduction in costs and investment.
The first project in this new program will be the ¨Nueva Malla vial del Cauca (Access Cali- Palmira)” road, with an investment of circa US $ 350 million.
The pre-specifications have already been published, with interesting modifications over the former 4G’s. These changes are intended to give comfort to debt providers, enabling more bankable projects and ensuring easier financial closings (something which has been the Achilles heel of the previous program).
The exceptional situation caused by COVID-19 has proved the Government’s unwavering commitment to 5G; a program which now, more than ever, is considered essential for recovering the good economic trends Colombia was showing before COVID.
The Government, together with the DNP, is looking for new and imaginative methods, such as financing of the betterment levy, to make new resources available for 5G.
In that regard, Project Financing will be crutial for the 5G program success.
