Haiti – Economy : $55 MM for the Northern Industrial Park

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $55 million grant to support the first phase of development of the Northern Industrial Park (NIP), which will have capacity for some 50,000 workers. The facility will be owned by the Haitian state, which has another manufacturing park in Port-au-Prince.

The park will be located on a 250-hectare site near the town of Caracol, between the cities of Cap Haitien and Ouanaminthe. IDB resources will finance several investments within the perimeter of the park, such as factory buildings, internal roads, water storage tanks and waste water treatment plants.

The U.S. government will support the NIP project by building a power plant to supply electricity to the industrial park and to surrounding communities, as well as by investing in housing for factory workers and their families and improvements to port facilities in Cap Haitien.

The project will be carried out by a technical execution unit of Haiti’s Ministry of Economy and Finance that successfully completed more than 50 basic infrastructure projects under a previous IDB-financed operation. Construction inside the NIP’s perimeter could start later this summer and the first phase could be finished by the first quarter of 2012.

In partnership with the U.S. Department of State, the IDB has been helping Haiti attract tenants to the new park. One of them, South Korean textile manufacturer Sae-A, expects to hire as many as 20,000 workers and build the country’s first textile mill.

Tenants seeking to use U.S. trade preferences for Haiti-based manufacturers will have to abide by local laws and international best practices regarding labor conditions. The NIP is also likely to generate tens of thousands of additional jobs in activities such as transportation, shipping and food services.

The NIP will be the keystone of a broader regional development plan featuring investments to boost agricultural production, develop value chains involving local small and medium-size enterprises and promote tourism based on northern Haiti’s cultural attractions.