Romeo Herrera, Minister of Public Works and Transportation, signed a contract for the megaproject in Los Chorros, the Pan-American Highway, which will include the Los Chorros Viaduct.
According to Herrera, the financing for the project is $372 million, part of which will be funded by the government of the Republic of Korea, while the other part will be funded by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).
In relation to this figure, the amount has increased in recent months. Last November, the Legislative Assembly approved a $166 million loan to finance the viaduct’s construction and expansion of a portion of the Los Chorros Highway, thus making $411.8 million available for the project.
By November of last year, the loan for this work had already been extended to about 70% of the initial amount, and until then the Ministry of Public Works had not detailed how much the total investment would be. It was CABEI that disclosed the request for the loan by the Salvadoran government.
As La Prensa Gráfica revealed on August 30, the total budget for the project was $260 million, but after a review of the initial idea, it increased to $410 million.
On May 22 last year, during the launch of the tender for the construction of the viaduct and the extension of the aforementioned section, Public Works Minister Romero Rodríguez stated that the work represents an investment of “more than $300 million”. ,
At the beginning of the conference, the minister affirmed that “without the Korean government our country could not develop a project of this magnitude thanks to the $410 million financing, part of which is with funds from the Korea Eximbank and the other part They are with the money coming from CABEI”.
After a few minutes, the minister said that the tender for the project was won by Dongbu Corporation, a South Korean company with a total investment of $327 million.
During the speech, after the signing of the contract to begin construction of the project, Herrera said that the central government thanked the Korean government, because according to the minister “without a doubt this type of project, with an investment of $372 million”. impossible to execute, if it was not thanks to the fundamental support of the Korean government”.
