Above: an atelier in Haiti (Photo: Clinton Bush Haiti Fund)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $17.5 million grant to promote investment and development in Haiti, the Bank announced.

The grant aims to strengthen the institutional capacity of Haiti’s Centre for Investment Facilitation, along with several other government agencies dealing with Haiti’s business climate.

Haiti received $181 million in foreign direct investment in 2011, the most it had ever received in a single year.

In a release, the IDB said such investment was “vital to help Haiti break the cycle of aid dependency and achieve sustainable economic growth.”

Some of the programmes that will be supported through the grant include a plan to implement a country branding campaign to promote Haiti as an investment destination, promotion of public-private partnerships and providing investors with up-to-date information on investment projects.

According to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent projection, Haiti’s GDP is slated to have grown by 4.5 percent this year.