Montevideo, Nov 7 (EFE). - The World Bank (WB) today finalized a loan of 12 million dollars for Uruguay, which will use the funds to boost the electronic procedures of its public sector and improve its quality.

The agreement was signed in Montevideo by the Vice President of the WB for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Familiar, and the Minister of Economy and Finance of Uruguay, Danilo Astori.

On August 3, the Board of the World Bank approved the loan of 12 million dollars to the Uruguayan Government for a period of seventeen and a half years, with a grace of another five.

Familiar arrived in Uruguay as part of the XXXII Annual Conference on Economics of the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU), which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and He took the opportunity to hold a meeting with Astori.

The director for Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, Jesko Hentschel, and the representative were also present at the meeting. resident in Uruguay, Matilde Bordón.

According to Familiar during the press conference, it was the first time that the international organization signed an agreement so electronic.

Astori, meanwhile, said that at the meeting he exchanged with the WB delegation "future aspects of cooperation" between the international organization and his country.

The beneficiaries of this loan will be the "companies, the private sector and the public sector".

The Electronic Government Agency and the Information and Knowledge Society, the The Ministry of Economy and Finance, the General Accounting Office of the Nation, the General Tax Directorate, the Ceibal Center and the Foreign Trade Single Window will be the first agencies to which the funds will be allocated.

The head of the Uruguayan Economy said that the objective is "to improve public management in general and the management of expenditure in particular" with the "intense" use of information technologies.

In addition, he highlighted that the country has the "most important records in Latin America" �??�??regarding the government. electronic.

Familiar considered that who wins more in this agreement is the BM, since with this type of cooperation the organism contributes to move the "frontier of knowledge in keys for development. "

The development of electronic procedures involves" clear reductions in the cost of citizen interaction with the State, "as well as" benefits related to climate change to the extent that the population does not have to move to carry out a procedure and can do so from the comfort of your home, "he added.