Above: Port-au-Prince (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

A group of 19 bankers in Haiti is receiving training from the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation.

The five-day training session, which is being conducted this week, seeks to improve the bankers’ trade finance operations, reduce risks and help them to better serve small and medium-sized enterprises.

It’s part of the IFC’s Global Trade Finance Programme, which was set up in 2005. The programme has trained almost 500 bankers from 20 countries in the region.

“IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program links more than 500 participating confirming and issuing banks — including 61 issuing banks in Latin America and the Caribbean — into a global network that expands access to finance for key productive sectors,” said Georgina Baker, IFC’s Director of Global Trade and Supply Chain Solutions. “Providing training is an important part of the program’s efforts to help banks in emerging markets provide trade finance to importers and exporters, particularly small and medium enterprises. The bottom line is to empower local banks to take on larger trade deals.”

The programme offers confirming banks partial or full guarantees on payment obligations in emerging markets for trade-related transactions, the organization said in a statement.

Since 2005, it has issued 15,019 guarantees for transactions totaling $23.3 billion.

Earlier this year, the IFC named Jean Philippe Prosper, a native of Haiti, its new vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Other IFC initiatives in Haiti include disaster insurance for micro-entrepreneurs and green energy investment, among others.