Brazil Potash Corp. (GRO) March 12, 2026 Annual General Meeting Transcript

invitamos a ubicarse en sus lugares. Comenzamos. This is the last call. We will begin now. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first day of the Business Forum, harnessing opportunities, unlocking growth as part of the IDB Group annual meetings. To formally inaugurate this Business Forum, please help me welcome IDB Group President Elan Goldfein.

Buenas tardes, good afternoon. It's a pleasure to welcome you to the IDB Group Business Forum here in Asunción, Paraguay. First, we need to express deep appreciation to Paraguay for hosting these 2026 IDB Group Annual Meetings. En particular, I would like to thank our host, Minister Carlos Fernández Valdovino, the Minister of Economy and Finance, for his partnership, his work, and his opening of this business forum with us. We have other authorities, Carlos, President of the Central Bank of Paraguay. We have our governors, my colleagues across the IDB group, y, muy importante, los sectores de los sectores, los inversores y los partners, y nosotras, por lo menos nuestros 48 miembros de Europa, Norte, América y beyond. La Fuerza Forum refleja una convicción, una convicción de la IDB Group and the direction of the IDB Group that the private sector is central to the future of the economy of the region. The private sector drives innovation. It drives productivity. It makes things more competitive and at the end of the day is the one that generates growth and jobs. And for us, that means is essential for development impact. So you can see this conviction reflected at the IDB group. We tend to say that we are the private sector MDB, private sector multilateral development bank, but with 66 this year, pero también tenemos años de experiencia con el sector en la región. Así que estamos dirigiendo a través del sector y usando los synergios que tenemos con el sector para generar las condiciones en el sector. Pero también aquí, en este año meeting, esta prioridad es reflejada. For the first time, we have not only the business form, but we have all the IDB Invest panels and discussion series and the roundtables and the bilaterals and all the networking. For the first time, almost half of the registers come from the private sector. We're talking about almost more than 1,700 registrations from the private sector. We have 300 CEOs. This is the highest level of leadership. We are having 750 C-level executives. So this is an IDB group annual meeting with the public, but also with the private sector. The place to do it is Paraguay, where the focus on private sector-led development is also a priority. The timing is also interesting. We just came out of our record year of financing, $35 billion in financing where we have the record financing from the public sector, but also record financing coming from IDB Invest and IDB Lab. $13 billion from the IDB Invest. But scale, the amount of money, is not the goal. What matters is what do you do with these resources. And here, I'm glad to say we made meaningful progress. We helped 34 million people gain access to quality health and nutrition services, 2.6 million people connected to broadband services, 3 million companies, small and medium, microcompanies, are now being supported by the IDB. And 900,000 farmers have access now to agricultural services. And our reforms go deep into the impact and the quality. I'm going to give you just one example. The instrument reform. We deep dive where the instruments we offer the countries, we offer the companies, are adequate. And we unify the instruments. So the country is going to have a catalog, a menu of what is available for them in a unified place. but we also looked at several innovations let me give you an example of the example the example is the instrument the example of the example are policy based loans here's what we are doing and we have just approved before coming here 10 measures of quality at entry of designing the projects an innovative way of looking at the results Before the end of the project As we go That is an innovation That will be brought to other MDBs We are bringing new financing modalities In particular For disaster Natural disaster Financing To be faster But to be bolder with reforms So that means that you have to approve the reforms Before We also tenemos una manera de dimensionar cuántos recursos para que se establezca por cada reforma que nos hagan es innovador si son sucesos eso será replicado en otros MDBs y last but not least tenemos que saber cómo se rely en otros coordinación para el macroeconomic evaluación vamos coordinar con el IMF we're going to separate liquidity from reforms we're going to work with them we're not going to replicate what I just said is record financing and a lot of reforms that will be implemented this is scale and impact this is our strategy that we call strategy plus and it's part of the three big transformational changes that we approved in Punta Cana impact plus and I'm saying it because in addition to the strategy we had the IDB invest plus which was the capitalization and the new business model and we had the IDB lab plus plus its replacement and I'm happy to say that two years ago two years ago when in 2023 in the DR Dominican Republic We launched the capitalization process for the IDB Invest. The proposal was then approved in the governance in 2024 in Punta Cana. And I'm happy to say today that we can announce that the subscription process for this $3.5 billion capital increase has successfully closed. This is a milestone. It reflects strong support from regional and non-regional shareholders for the IDB Invest Business Model and strengthens the institution's capacity to finance companies and mobilize private investment. This gives a lot of space for the reader to share a business model that will allow us to originate, but more importantly, to share with you our project. Y lo hacemos, no solo porque queremos compartir con ustedes, sino que queremos movilizar recursos, queremos catalyse recursos, porque necesitamos los recursos para el desarrollo de los gapos. With more capital, IDB invest can structure larger and more complex transactions, come earlier in project cycles, and mobilize global investors into the region. If we maintain what we saw last year, record financing from public sector and private sector, and we now factor in the capitalization going forward, we estimate that over the next decade we could have the capacity to finance $500 billion across Latin America and the Caribbean. This is twice what we've done in the last 10 years. So we're looking for a half a trillion dollars of financing, private sector, and public sector. And more importantly, and more importantly, again, what do we do with these resources? What we will do with these resources? We want to get faster growth, quality jobs, less poverty, and other real concrete results for the region. These annual meetings take place in Latin America and the Caribbean, countries that are thinking about how are they going to deal with this global environment, how will they y también se han convertido en el futuro. Así que se han convertido en el mercado, se han convertido en la supply chains, se han convertido en la inversión. Yo diría que este es el momento para la América Latina y la Caribe. Tenemos la poder de un gran mercado si estuviera juntos. Estamos hablando de 660 millones de personas con un total de 6.6 millones de dólares. This is a huge market with scale, but we need to be connected. The region has received quite a bit of attention. So on that background, let me tell you what we believe could be the priorities for a private sector engagement. I will say that we'll have in this private sector agenda, and James and others will talk about it, We have four types of opportunities. One, let's try to find opportunities in some sectors, key sectors, like critical minerals and others. Second, let's think about AI and digital transformation, how this affects the private sector of the region. Third, we need to deal with infrastructure. We are the multilateral development bank. Fourth, how we can mobilize more resources. So, let me tell you that we believe that the IDB group can work together, where the IDB works with governments to strengthen regulation, institutions, and investment climate. That's the public sector. The private sector, IDB invests structures and finances private sector projects. And the IDB lab builds early-stage markets and innovation ecosystem. Together, we can turn reforms into pipelines. Pipelines into investment. Public reform and private capital must move together. The IDB group is where we hope to make these connections transfer. So, let me conclude saying that the IDP Group wants to be a reliable connector between Latin America and the Caribbean and global markets, helping translate global capital demand partnership into growth and development across the region. So today's context will present you real opportunities for companies, for the private sector. The IDB stands ready to help you seize these opportunities. We serve as the connector, as the bridge. Thank you very much for being part of this annual meeting, part of this conversation, y parte del objetivo de ayudar a turnar oportunidades into results for Latin America and the Caribbean. Thank you very much.

Thank you, President Goldfein. Next, let's please welcome James Scriven, CEO of IDV Invest.

Gracias. Welcome to everybody. I'm standing in between two of my bosses, the president of the IDV Group and the minister of finance que será pronto el presidente de la Board de Governos. Clearly, mi dos bosses. Así que voy a ser muy breve y voy a dar tres mensajes. Uno, por qué cambiamos el anual meeting. Uno, como lo he escuchado de Elan, estamos evolucionando a un instituto private sector de desarrollo de la institución donde el desarrollo de la sector de la base de nuestra mission. y por eso estamos rethinking cómo nuestras reuniones anuales se convierten en un gran negocio segundo el presidente de Paraguay Santiago Peña cuando era un ministerio la última vez que yo vine para nuestra reunión anual a Asunción en 2017 él usó el siguiente y voy a decirlo en español traigamos Paraguay al mundo Vamos a llevar el mundo a Paraguay y Paraguay a todo el mundo. Y como ustedes van a escuchar, y fue un mensaje clara por el Ministerio Fernández, es que queremos que esto se convierta en un ambiente de negocio privado. Así que ese es el primer mensaje de por qué queremos todos ustedes venir aquí. Y un gran gracias a todos ustedes que viajaron mucho para llegar aquí, o en breve. Second message, what you heard from Elan is that we got $3.5 billion of a capital increase. So this is an appetizer because tomorrow at 11 o'clock in the morning you're going to have me over here talking about what I'm going to do with that money. So be sure to come over here. You're going to hear, one, how we got the money, two, what are we going to use it, and how it will benefit all of you. So that's a preview to that. El tercer punto que quería mencionar es que el señor que estaba aquí, Presidente Elan, hoy es su 60th birthday. Así que con eso quiero enviar a él un gran congracimiento. Y Elan, tú ganaste $3.5 billones para tu presentación, un montón de presentes. Con eso, muchas gracias y bienvenido a la pantalla.

Gracias, Mrs. Striven. Bienvenidos a la pantalla a Carlos Fernández Valdovinos, Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas de Paraguay.

Con James nos une una relación muy buena.

James y yo tenemos una relación muy especial. Y es porque cada vez que voy a Washington, no voy a ver Elon, voy a ver James. Porque James lends a la sector privada. Y nos hicimos muy bien en octubre de 2024. Él me prometió que tendría un millón de dólares para nuestro país. En el año pasado, jugó a jugador, y me dijo que yo era el mejor en el campo. Y nos hicimos muy bien, hasta que me hicimos mi introducción. Querido Ilan, quiero ser la primera vez que te agradezco por su cumpleaños. This is indeed a special day, because we're launching this forum, but also because it's extremely special, given that you are celebrating your birthday here with us in Paraguay. So I don't want to change my speech, but I would ask you to give Elon a round of applause. Now I'm not sure what excuse or gift he's going to have to have for his wife, given que le broughte her aquí instead de celebrar a casa, así que es algo para que se diga. Lo que hemos escuchado es música para mi. La creación de la sector-led growth es claramente una visión que tenemos aquí en Paraguay y en el IDB. I don't want to preempt what I will be saying at the Inaugural Session of the Board of Governors meeting, but I always recall what Darwin said, and it's that it's not always the strongest species that survive, but rather the ones that are most adaptable to change, and that applies everywhere. It happens in the corporate sector, in the private sector, with companies, Yo diría que este lanzó, y creo que fue un rebrandimiento para ver cómo se puede reflejar la importancia del sector privado en el IDB. Antes, íbamos hablar sobre el IDB, así es como se conoce. Ahora estamos hablando del IDB grupo. Es cierto, hay tres partes diferentes. Tenemos el tradicional IDB, en el INVEST, y también tenemos el innovador segmento, which is under IDBLAB, which is going to be increasingly important. It's still very young and small, but it's going to grow in importance. Paraguay has wagered on the concept of IDB 2.0. As the countries develop, they grow, and they enjoy the privilege we are currently enjoying. We have access to international financial markets, and we can issue debt in guaraníes at reasonable tenors. So basically, it's important for multilateral organizations to adapt. The traditional role of the IDB, the World Bank and the IMF will still be a part of their future because our countries are widely different, but they will have to adapt to new things, to the way things are now. Before, there was no one-size-fits-all, or maybe one-size-fits-all, could work in Latin America. We were all poor. We all dealt with similar problems. So the traditional model of working with the private sector and providing assistance for infrastructure and roads, water and sanitation, the banks could help us to build capacity, to improve management, and that model did work across the board for all our countries. Pero ahora algunos de nosotros tenemos el privilegio que hemos mencionado antes, y tenemos acceso a los mercados internacionales. Así que eso nos permite retener el rol de estas instituciones, y eso es exactamente lo que estamos haciendo con ELAN. Es decir, es el derecho de enfatizar el rol que el sector privado puede hacer. I see it here in my country. It may be true that there are many lines of credit for companies that come from abroad or from headquarter companies or before Paraguay would borrow from multilaterals, then it graduated and was able to issue bonds internationally, so the road that leads us to financial maturity as I call it, can benefit from the experience of IDB Invest, in my view. IDB Invest, I believe, will open the doors. It will afford credibility to those companies that have access to IDB Invest and will make it possible for others to graduate in the future and have the access we currently have internationally. I have a prepared text, and maybe I'll do it with Presidente did, and just leave it aside. A question I tend to get is, where do we invest in Paraguay, how do we invest in Paraguay, or in Latin America? And as civil servants, as public officials, I think we need to be humble and perhaps say something, but if the private sector doesn't know where the opportunities lie for investing in each of those countries, then nobody has the We need to continue building a field like the one where we were yesterday with Ilan that has freshly cut turf, that has clear lines drawn, that has good seating, but it has to be the private sector that leads the game. I am here, like others, by chance, because this is actually your forum. It's the private sector forum, and what we want to do at this annual meeting is to make a change and provide the private sector for more opportunities to make deals, to learn about the opportunities, not just here in Paraguay, but across the region, because Latin America is full of opportunities. I'd like to quote Ilan. When he took office, he said Latin America can, and I think should, be a part of the solutions in addressing the challenges the world faces. We have food supply, we have renewable energy sources, we have que es algo que fue muy en vogue. Tenemos minerales y rare earths. Tenemos recursos ambientales, así que hay muchas oportunidades para el sector privado y el región. Pero, de nuevo, el gobierno no va a llamar a la match. Es va a llamar a la sector privada. So I hope that this forum, as part of this annual meeting, will serve to open those doors wide and to create opportunities so that we can have PPPs, which will not be public-private partnerships, rather private-private partnerships between and among countries of the region. y que eso va a permitir que nuestros países tengan lo que los políticos aspiran para, para el crecimiento económico, para el trabajo de trabajo, que traslamos a más bienestar para todos los que vivan en nuestros países. Gracias, y se ha gustado mucho, y espero que tengan un fruto.

Gracias, Ministro Valdovinos. Gracias, Ministro Valdovinos. Digital Transformation and AI, Enabling the Digital Economy. Let's begin. Join me in welcoming the speakers. First, Sergio Liu, Chief Industries Officer of IDB Invest. Welcome, Sergio. Sergio will moderate this panel. Estamos también felices de bienvenido a Roberto Laratro, CEO de Tigo Paraguay, Jacqueline López, Director de Institutional Relations LATAM South at Ericsson, Nicolás Arreliaga, Managing Partner at Araico, Mercedes Vidart, Founder of Kipu. A warm round of applause for our panelists again. Sergio, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you hear me? Yes. So, good afternoon. Great to start this afternoon's session related to the private sector. When we look at private sector, we definitely think of where the region is today, ¿where it's headed ? ¿and what are the drivers? So, let me start by sharing that digital transformation is not just another policy agenda for the region it's probably the defining opportunity of the decade that we cannot miss The region has shown resilience that's what you read en el último reporte de la historia de los colegas de IDB en el último reporte de los colegas de la comunidad de IDB de la semana, pero también highlight que eso no es suficiente. Necesitamos que crezca y necesitas crezca mejor, necesitas crezca mejor y necesitas crezca mejor. Para crezca más, necesitamos ser más productivos. Productividad es un multiplicador que necesitamos ver. Y probablemente el más relevante factor para lograr la producción de productividad es la transformación digital. Y no es solo conectividad, porque, como estaba preparando para este panel, me pregunté, ¿qué estamos hablando? La conectividad es relevante, pero también la calidad de esa conectividad. Es un número de cosas que nos ayudará a deliverar lo que la sociedad necesita. Así que voy a empezar con un poco de referencia a lo que somos. Y los panelistas me ayudará a discutir qué son las oportunidades y qué son las constraintes para lograr estas oportunidades. We start with what percentage of Latin America and the Caribbean do actually have access to fixed broadband. Rural areas are very limited, 15%. Only 23% of all houses in Latin America do have access to fixed broadband compared to 40% in developed economies. We need to reduce that gap. And it will take $55 to $70 billion to reduce that gap. And just as a reference, research says that 10 percentage points of increase in fixed broadband will increase GDP by 1.4%. Second message, we have internet available in the region. 4G covers more than 90% of our countries. The question is 5G, and 5G is very limited. It's still 15% of the total population. y cuando combina ambos lo que obtiene es no es cuestión de availability, es cuestión de calidad que es necesaria para los futuros que vamos a usar 5G y luego el concepto de data centros data centros son un gran necesito y oportunidades pero hay un montón de constraintes para ver eso ¿Cuáles son las cosas que están progresando? First, they are focused or concentrated in a few countries. A few countries dominate the projects. But then, there are many issues related to power generation, transmission bottlenecks, capital, and probably also relevant lengthy and complicated permitting processes. En la meantime, capital markets están mostrando que ellos creen que esto es el futuro. OpenAI, en la semana pasada, no tiene que ver con Latinoamérica, ha hecho $110 billones con solo tres inversores. Amazon, $50 billones. Nvidia, $30 billones. SoftBank, $30 billones. Hay mucho capital. Tenemos que llevar ese capital a nosotros. ¿Qué es el rol? ¿Qué es IDB Invest's rol? Quiero traer bancos de transacciones a la escala. Quiero que el sector de la privada. Y definitivamente queremos la región no perder la oportunidad. Así que vamos a hacer lo que podemos evitar que eso suceda. Entonces, con eso, ahora vamos a escuchar de los expertos. Y por último, tenemos aquí con nosotros un telecom operador, global network technology provider, un investor, un entrepreneur que está looking at data centers en muchos lugares, pero en particular en Paraguay. Y, por último, un fintech innovador. So, together they'll help us see how the different angles from which they look at the business coordinate with each other and what are, if we can, the conclusions we can arrive at. So, I'll start with Roberto Laratro from Tigo. And I'm going to go to Spanish.

We want to look at where real opportunity lies. Y cuando hablamos de oportunidades, Roberto, me gustaría escuchar tu perspectiva con tu experiencia en varios mercados. ¿Dónde ves oportunidades reales? ¿Es en conectividad, servicios, uso, y qué es la demanda? Gracias, Sergio. Es un placer estar aquí con este panel. good afternoon everyone i'd like to take a step back before we get into the matter of opportunities we speak a lot about artificial intelligence the platform uh technological progress in the digital sphere but behind all of that we have digital infrastructure and as sergio was correctly pointed out that's where we come in tele telecommunications we are the ones that built that digital highway so that that digital economy can function thanks to those arteries over recent years we've invested a lot in infrastructure and what we're seeing now with the ai revolution is that demand for data is growing exponentially our role is to prepare para que el transporte, el desarrollo que lleva, pueda materializar. Sergio, estamos operando en 12 países en América Latina, y cuando identificamos esta oportunidad, el rol que tenemos que jugar como telecom, hemos investido mucho en la región por eso. Quiero hablar un poco sobre Paraguay, donde tenemos una sensación de esto. Today, we speak of local connectivity, where 95% of the Paraguayan public has access. It was only 67 a few years ago, so we have invested sustainably in Paraguay. And then we talk a lot about global connectivity, which is so important in Paraguay. We talk about outgoing connections. This is what ensures, number one, scale, because client's demand comes with a lot of data. And then second, a secure networks so that we have redundancy so that the net can be used. And then third, we have to address latency. In this world of AI, latency is very important. A third part of this in Paraguay is macroeconomic stability. que juega un papel importante en términos de centros de datos. Y nosotros vemos el interés en los centros de datos como una gran oportunidad. Tenemos un montón de interés expresado en Paraguay por lo que todo Paraguay tiene que ofrecer. Y el último que es importante mencionar es talento. Paraguay tiene un talento joven, y eso es donde vemos la oportunidad de escalar el conocimiento técnico en order de lidiar con esta revolución tecnológica. La pregunta que nos preguntamos, Sergio, en muchas ocasiones es no es lo que hacemos con AI, porque es aquí. It's how do we work together in order to get the most out of it and how do we improve productivity. I say this because there was an article in the World Economic Forum and McKinsey as well about how AI improves productivity. Si miramos los números, esperamos que si obtenemos lo más de adoptar AI, eso podría tener un impacto de alrededor de 1.9, 2.3 en términos de GDP. Es un gran impacto. Y eso es lo que hacemos. Lo coordinamos y trabajamos juntos para hacer lo más de esa oportunidad que tenemos aquí. ¡Gracias! Muchas gracias. Vamos a volver a uno de los problemas que tenías, Roberto.

No es que Mercedes no habla español, pero ese fue el acuerdo, que vamos a volver al inglés. Mercedes, usted ejecuta un rendimiento bastante relevante de fintech o de realmente ayudar a microcompanies a obtener crédito usando AI. En ese contexto, ¿dónde ves que estas herramientas digitales ya están haciendo un impacto? ¿Y dónde está la adopción todavía no está sucediendo?

Sí, claro.

Sí, como tú estás diciendo, Sergio, somos KIPU, somos microbusinesses y trabajadores informales o trabajadores independientes. Y quiero empezar por darles un sentido de cómo es enorme en la región. 9 de 10 de nuestros negocios son microbusinesses, son micro, small, y medium enterprises. Así que estos tipos de negocios están dando la región un terzo de la GDP. Esto es enorme, pero todavía estamos viendo que hay una tasa de financiación. Es alrededor de 1.4, 1.5 trillones. Y ahí es donde vimos la oportunidad de entender cómo podemos conservar esta población, que es la engine de nuestra economía, con crédito. Y para llegar allí, necesitamos, of course, la infraestructura digital. Entonces, hay una gran penetración de, por ejemplo, digital wallets. Even Tigo, como una compañía de comunicación, es adoptando digital wallets dentro de la compañía, ¿no? Así que cada país en la región tiene su propio wallet, usualmente owned por un banco o una compañía de telecomunicación, donde ahora la adopción es de 43%. Before COVID, it was 11%. So you can understand how it increased the penetration of digital payments. This is key if we want to improve in lending. Like, we need first that layer. We need the layer of using a mobile phone, a smartphone. Then we need the layer of let's make digital payments. Still, cash is our king in the region. It's 70% of our transactions happen in cash. But the digital payments are extremely important. And we see a huge adoption there. Pero aún así, creo que hay un gap en cómo, en top de los pagos de los pagos, podemos empezar a añadir más de servicios financieros de financiación, que están en la venta, en la venta, en la venta. Esto es también una gran oportunidad en la región, cómo entendemos la venta de la venta para estos microbusinesses. Entonces, ahí es donde se ve la oportunidad, en cómo podemos añadir más de las ventas, en la venta de financiación, pero también en la venta de digitales, que podría ser AI, por supuesto, that support these businesses in how they manage their everyday accountant, for example, or their everyday management of their employees and the business. So there's where we see the gap still happening.

Let me follow up on that, because this morning I think I shared with you that Minister Riquelme showed a ratio of how many small companies in Paraguay tienen un banco de bancos. Él habló de 476,000 empresas de las que solo 15,000 tienen un banco de bancos. Él dijo que le released un certificado que la Unión de Taxes Nacional puede testificar o que se acercie que estas empresas existen y que estas empresas son bien registradas. ¿Podemos hacer esto acelerar la adopción?

So, well, I have a controversial kind of opinion. I think we don't need, I mean, we need formalization, of course. Like, we need businesses to get more formalized. But I don't know if the formalization is what will lead them to acquire more technology or to grow. I think growth happens first, and then happens formalization. Because when we want to push formalization, sometimes we break companies. So, we need to offer services, even if they are not still formal. That's my opinion about it.

No, no, makes sense. So, let's move on to a different topic within the same, let's say, family of things. What makes these opportunities scalable? So, I'll first ask Jacqueline, Jacqueline from Edison. As networks become more software driven and data intensive what capabilities do you think are now essential to scale digital services and AI and its uses not just opening the business but at scale?

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you Sergio and IDB for this invitation. Es un placer estar aquí con mis colegas en el panel. También estoy feliz de estar aquí en el año que Ericsson celebró 150 años globalmente. Over 100 años en la región. Y en este sector, debemos seguir innovando. ¿Y qué es la próxima? La siguiente wave de innovación tiene tres pilares. AI, cloud, and connectivity. I just came back from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and AI was everywhere. But there is no AI without connectivity. So as Ericsson, we integrate these three pillars, these three technologies, into a platform that can promote growth and innovation. Coming back to your point in terms of scale, so what is the next step then? How can we scale up y y y y y que share common principles, por ejemplo, transparent corporate governance, resilient and robust supply chain, and this brings this open digital ecosystem. Those companies, they have different portfolios, they come from different countries, but we en un sector, en un segmento, pero podrá llegar a todo, en un sector, en un segmento, pero podrá llegar a todo, bringing impact and growth.

Thank you, Jacqueline. I move on to Nico. Nicolás Sarechaga, who's an entrepreneur expanding the opportunities within the data centers world. Nicolás, this is clearly a new horizon. And the question is, are there new or different ways for data centers to be designed, to be financed, and to be valued today? What's your view on that?

Thank you for the question. I think we live in a time now that the hockey stick just became, you know, per day. Like, it's not about, like, a matter of years or a month. It's like every day we're just insane growth. So what it changed fundamentally now for data centers is that the assets is not any longer a real estate asset. We just have a, you know, warehouse with, you know, machines. It's actually an integrated platform, right? So you have Fiverr, Power, and the chips, right? Literally from Power to Chip. So how do you underwrite the risk of those assets? Now it became more challenging as well because we are not talking about a few hundred million projects. You're talking about a few billion projects. Stargate, for example, which is done by OpenAI with Oracle and Crusoe, is a 500 billion project. We had the opportunity with my partners to go and visit that. fue insane, la magnitud de lo que están construyendo megawatts y gigawatts en un par de meses. Así que eso es llegando. Es actualmente aquí. Y para volver a tu pregunta, en términos de valoración y el riesgo de poder estar listo para esta wave, tenemos que tener tres principales opciones en el planeta. Uno es, por supuesto, la energía. Es la mayor cosa. y necesitas para sustainarlo. ¿Qué tipo de poder? Y vamos a agree que aquí en South America tenemos el poder de la greenest en la mundo. FIVER. Gracias a sus colegas aquí, estamos muy conectados. Por supuesto, podemos mejorar, pero estamos muy conectados con la vida. Y la tercera es GEOPOLITIC. GEOPOLITICIC juega un gran rol aquí. Es un gran gran elefante en el río que nadie normalmente le gusta hablar. Pero tenemos dos opciones. we know this either east or west and we need to make sure when we build this infrastructure we are ready you know to sustain the different investments that we need you know to support different platforms that are available to build the infrastructure for AI because once you build this infrastructure coming back to you know square one after deploying billions of dollars it's a bit difficult right so I think in terms of like investment is important to have So as we can say how relevant to all of the three aspects to consider when you build that infrastructure.

Let me follow up on that. How relevant, you mentioned east and west, but how relevant it is the agreement between countries on who is going to govern data to see these projects coming to life, understanding that it's not the same thing ¿No? ¿Cómo se puede hacer con el datacenter? ¿No?

Luege de la planta de computadores, ¿no? ¿Cómo se puede hacer con el micrófono? You are producing tokens, and those tokens basically are intelligence. So basically you have a training layer where you train the models, the foundation models. And then on top of that, you add the data of the companies, the enterprises, to be able to train the models with your data. So then you can use the inference models to basically chat with them and ask them how you can improve your services. So going back to the point of how do you make it in a way that is available to everyone in a region like here, for example. pero es importante tener la soberanía de la soberanía. Claro, no es una cuestión de que uno país es mejor que el otro. Los hyperscalers son Google, Microsoft, los metas de la vida. Están todos buscando lugares para desplazarse. No importa quiénes van, es que es Paraguay o Brasil o Argentina o Chile. Todos necesitas coexisten juntos. Hay una soberanía de desplazamiento en cada país, pero también hay una capacidad de desplazamiento. Porque, al final del día, esto es poder, esto es fiber, así que necesitas tener una carga compartida que pueda crecer la industria. Así que diría que vemos mucho de software en deployment. Datasometría es realmente importante, es clave para las naciones, pero también es importante para las naciones compartir un framework común para que cada uno pueda crecer en top de eso.

Voy a cambiar de tópico. Vamos a hablar de...

Changing topics. Vamos a hablar de las constraintes. Vamos a volver a Roberto Roberto, como un carier muy grande en 12 países, tiene un rol muy importante, y puedes compartir con nosotros, mientras hay mucha demanda, no todos tienen broadband, ¿cuáles son las contraintes? ¿Qué son las economías, operaciones, mercados contraintes? Porque, en alguna manera, estas contraintes son slowing down la adopción de la tecnología. Gracias, Sergio, por esa pregunta. Muy buena pregunta, por ejemplo. Primero, en contraintes, lo que vemos es la oportunidad. We were talking about this, about the importance of talent, the digital skills that one needs in order to invigorate that technological development that we're experiencing. An issue that ties into that, going back to Paraguay, is that we have a very clear idea on what mobile services are used for and how many people use that. Y cuando miramos a los jóvenes, vemos que uno en diez tienen acceso a un phone, pero solo dos de diez usan los para educacionales. Y creo que es un gran parte de datos. ¿Cómo podemos hacer la tecnología tecnológica para hacer el máximo de esa oportunidad? Eso es el primer punto. Second, how do we work together, which is why I welcome this event. The public sector, the private sector should work together with institutions like the IDB. In fact, we signed several agreements in Salvador, Colombia, Paraguay with IDB Invest. Creo que hay gran potencial ahí para continuar desarrollando ese ecosistema, el sector público, el sector privado, instituciones como el IDB, porque lo que estamos experimentando hoy, el crecimiento de datos será exponencial, y para alcanzar esa demanda con esa highway digital, vamos a necesitar un montón de investimiento y un montón de colaboración. Y, por último, voy a terminar con esto, es muy importante para nosotros asegurarnos de que esto funciona, para que podamos obtener el investimiento que necesitamos para desarrollar, la infraestructura, la tecnología, para que podamos realmente capturar los valores económicos y sociales, para que podamos hacer la mayor parte de esta oportunidad. Great, thank you very much for coming back.

Talking about constraints, we tend to believe the access by microcompanies to financial services is kind of slow or limited. So the question is, what can fintechs like Kipu do to accelerate that, not to accelerate that restriction, para acelerar la incorporación. ¿Qué son las barreras? Porque usted dijo que no crees que la formalización first grows later. Entonces la pregunta es, incluso sin la formalización, ¿qué puede ser hecho? ¿Y qué ves esas restricciones?

Claro, sí. Sí, vamos a volver a la formalización porque es muy importante para enfiar lo que podemos hacer. tenemos que entender cómo es lo que parece, ¿no? Y microbusinesses, la mayoría de nuestra economía en la región, 60%, es informal. Esto significa que es informal workers, compañías que no están registrados o no tienen una cuenta de bancos. Así que es la forma en que nosotros trabajamos. Y por lo que yo estaba diciendo que no es malo per se. Nosotros necesitamos primero crecer y luego formalizar, para crecer la economía y luego formalizar. Y desde nuestra perspectiva en Kipu, entendimos cómo funciona informality. Y entendimos que informality, como lo llamamos, es lo que se llaman en plain sight, porque es el engine de nuestra economía. Pero no entendemos informality porque no hay datos, ¿verdad? Por eso es informal. No sabemos cuánto está transacting, dónde está vendiendo. Es usualmente ocurre en una manera que no está en declaraciones financieras o en bancos. Eso es lo que usualmente los bancos son usados a leer estos tipos de negocios. Así que primero dijimos que necesitamos entender cómo funcionan, y necesitamos entender ahora, por supuesto, usando todo el dato que está disponible, lo que está sucediendo en sus vidas. Así que estamos usando AI en el proceso de underwriting, para assessar el riesgo. Porque si lo asesco el riesgo como lo habíamos visto desde los bancos, looking at the credit bureau then most of them will be rejected but if we use live data on how you're using your phone how you're using your digital wallet how your business looks like your social media looks like then we can have a live monitor of your financial well-being and be able to say okay who is uh you know who should get a loan or who shouldn't get a loan but not just looking at the credit bureau so that was like one of the opportunities that we are es cómo capturamos diferentes tipos de datos, cómo creamos modos que están mirando a no estructura de datos, esto significa que son social media, videos, cosas que normalmente no son en un modelo financiero, y cómo podemos partner, en un modo, con los bancos para mejorar la manera de mirar los microecesos. Así que vemos que hay un la oportunidad en cómo comenzar también. También se llama la hyper-personalización de la oferta. No cada microbusiness o cada consumidor necesita el mismo tipo de loan, así que necesitamos poder, en segundos, decir que este es el tipo de loan que necesitas. El mismo que en nuestra Instagram, que recibe todo el tiempo marketing, porque ellos saben lo que nos gusta, lo que estamos buscando, debería ser el mismo en los servicios financieros. servicios. And there's where we see opportunity on using AI, using the digital infrastructure that is already there. It doesn't matter if people are in the formal economy or formal economy, they are using their phones, they are using digital payments. We can get more data right now. And there's where, you know, using AI is super powerful because now we can scale it. So we see that AI could be making businesses more efficient, could be also scaling loan operations in a more efficient way, but also could be more Muy interesante, estas variables que estás usando.

Recuerdo que en el día en el que hemos trabajado en diferentes instituciones con personas que no han cambiado su teléfono y personas que no han cambiado su e-mail adres son menos posibles a defaultar a las personas que lo hacen. Lo que es parte de lo que estás diciendo. Pero quiero preguntarte dos preguntas de follow-up muy rápidamente. The first one is, how about the performance of this portfolio using the criteria that you use? And number two, from one to ten, what is the number of AI-based decision-making in your overall decision-making process? So, to what extent AI is the driver of your decision? Or you just started to use the tool to become more efficient in the way you do your business?

No, es 100% AI. Así que empezamos como un company de AI. Empezamos a gatherar este tipo de datos y damos a nosotros mismos, realmente pequeños loans de $10, para entender cuál es el dato que estaba predica o no default. Así que es 100% based en AI. Es, como decía, es automatizar decisiones en segundos. Y luego, en la performance, empezamos a servir a usuarios que fueron rejecutados por otra institución financiera y de esos usuarios, nos aprobamos 20% y tuvimos el mismo default rate que ellos tenían con sus usuarios que fueron asesados por la CREDIT BUREAU. Así que vemos que podría ser un portfolio healthy y lo que está haciendo es básicamente mejorar el acceso, así que es hacer el % de los aprobadores más alto, más que bajar el default. Puede tener el mismo default que el otro. ¡Gracias!

Vamos a la futura, los próximos tres a cinco años, porque probablemente Y eso es lo que todos nos preocupan el más. Y voy a Jacqueline primero. ¿Qué piensas que se separan los que se han llegado de los que no? En términos de segmentos de mercado, ¿qué piensas que crees que estamos en el momento donde podemos definir lo que es necesario para que se han llegado?

Gracias por su pregunta. So, as mentioned, one of the pillars of the next wave of innovation is connectivity, and 5G is key in that regard, and we are glad to see that in many countries across the region, they have concluded or they are in the process of concluding the 5G auctions, because this can escalate the benefits of the technology. There is an access tab, which is the 5G standalone, and this can leverage all the capabilities of the technology and support the growth and the future applications for that. It's important to remember the benefits of 5G. Economic growth, we estimate by 2030, 5% GDP growth for Latin America based on 5G. Part of that is due to the private networks that can foster digital transformation across different sectors, from mining, agriculture, Industry 4.0, public safety, and so on. Also, sustainability, because 5G can reduce by 20% the emissions, also by 2030. y digital inclusion and this needed needs a collaboration between the public and private sector to check the past public policy that can foster innovation based on dialogue public consultations and it's very good that in the region we already have good examples from this so a couple of 5g auctions that happen in en las regiones, se han cambiado de Spectrum FIIs a las obligaciones de Coverage. Esto significa reinvestir interconectividad de Brasil, Perú, y otros que adoptan eso. Y también, también, universal sectorial fundos de Costa Rica, Argentina y otros países que están permitiendo reinvestir interconectividad en áreas remotas o conectadas a las escuelas. So, those models, they can foster growth and innovation. Another pillar that is really relevant, and Roberto mentioned about this, is the digital skill. So, it's the ability to implement that technology. At Ericsson, we have some partnerships. And about two years ago, we announced a partnership for a 5G university in Brazil to support the digital transformation across industries. And this would increase the capabilities of the countries and has potential to scale. So we estimate about 30,000 people trained per year in this regard. But as already mentioned, all of this also needs an open digital ecosystem. So this is key to promote the next steps of the innovation and to have the ability to scale, to bring all this growth, all those benefits for digital inclusion to sustainability and economic growth, not only to Latin America but to support the growth and the next wave of innovation.

So thank you Jacqueline. y también mencioné la oportunidad con 5G para crecer más y también mencioné la necesidad de un ecosistema abierto ¿Ves ver las empresas, sectores en general dentro de la transformación digital en el ecosistema cooperando en el tiempo, discutiendo lo que tiene que ser hecho ¿cuáles son los gráneres comunes o eso no está sucediendo todavía?

Es una muy buena pregunta un ejemplo reciente que estamos orgullosos para ser parte de la empresa. Es el Trusted Tech Alliance, que ya mencioné. Así que es 15 empresas. Y, por lo que se puede ver el ejemplo de la Mobile World Congress en Barcelona, fue muy interesante ver qué fue lo que se hace desde el año pasado. Creo que el año pasado, fue más como un tema, mientras que este año, se puede ver el campo. Real aplicaciones, desde la educación, y y y y y y y y también, tres a cinco años de ahora, ¿cuál es la siguiente wave de oportunidades?

Y no tiene que necesariamente ser diferente de lo que vemos hoy, pero estamos pensando en la intersección de infraestructura, datos, AI, lo que sea. Hay muchas más termes que debería usar para que la intersección, pero ¿cuál determinarse dónde se va a capital ¿Cómo se puede beneficiar a las empresas que se han beneficiado en este nuevo wave de dinero? ¿Cómo se puede beneficiar a las empresas que se han beneficiado en este nuevo wave de dinero?

Creo que es un gran punto de vista, como se puede poner a la escala. Cuando se trata de la cloud o GPT o AI, creo que es en nuestro teléfono, en nuestro teléfono o nuestro teléfono. Yo creo que, por ejemplo, es necesario, a partir de un plan de infraestructura, a partir de un sistema de infraestructura, en la QTS is a part of that as you mentioned is a current of course we are talking about buildings of investments so we have the opportunity as a region to transform our whole economy in a couple of years talking about the size of the GDP of a country of Paraguay's close to 50 billion that can be deployed in less like almost a gigawatt of investment so can you imagine a GDP of our country in one investment we're talking about 100 in 120 hectares 1.3 Obviously, gigawatts of like a project is our project right now. We're talking about close to 15% of the country's power in a 120 hectares with potentially 50 billion of investments. So it's to share the investment is not just here, I mean it's happening in the Middle East in the Emirates that are doing a 5 gigawatts data center. Target is a couple of gigawatts as well. There are incredible opportunities. We as a region, we should harness our resources to be able to participate in this economy. Tenemos dos opciones para participar. You either have the money, you know, the Middle East have the money to participate in this economy. We have the resources and we need to be clever in the way that we structure this. So policy is important. So having the buy-in of governments to understand how to participate within the economy is really key. Also, you know, how to be sustainable in the way we participate in this economy is key as well because as well we said, okay, we're going to run out of power. no, no, no. y luego vamos a seguir, pero tenemos que tener el framework para eso. En un modo, yo diría que es importante que nos vamos a hacer que nos vamos a hacer. Me, yo estoy muy imprescindible en cómo los gobiernos tienen la oportunidad de trabajar con diferentes gobiernos en la región, especialmente en Paraguay. Es imprescindible en cómo, you know, ellos son muy keenos a entender y a mover adelante y a traer ese industrio en el país. Así que eso es importante, y solo para poner algunos números en la región, y en el mundo de la ciudad, es 5 gigawatts short de la potencia de power. Es expected to be 100 gigawatts en el próximo 5 años. 3 años, en el año pasado, 70 gigawatts de la gastronomía de la data central. Last año, fue 180 gigawatts, y ahora el pipeline es 370 gigawatts. Así que estamos hablando de no megawatts, gigawatts, ok, para saber cuánto es dentro de eso. Así, necesitamos estar listos. y no es un gran valor, sino que no es un gran valor, sino que no es un gran valor. Además, es un gran valor. Es un gran valor. Y también es un gran valor.

Hábleo y un gran valor. ¿Qué es lo que es lo que está pasando? ¿Cómo es lo que está disponible en un gran valor en el largo plazo para crear este proyecto? ¿Por qué no hay más proyectos en Paraguay, en particular, con PPAs que ahora pueden ser signed up to 15 años a un pretty reasonable rate? ¿Tú crees que más proyectos para Paraguay?

Por supuesto, por supuesto. Así que, con la habilidad de acceso a la power ahora, nadie tiene eso. Así que, básicamente, acceso a megawatt es cerca de 3 millones por megawatt. Así que, estamos hablando de una gestión de gestión. Estamos construyendo 300 megawatts sub-station ahora, que es menos de 50 millones de dólares. Si vamos a construir 300 megawatts de eso en el U.S., va a ser cerca de un millón. Así que ya tenemos un millón ahead en CAPEX. Además, si tenemos el CAPEX, el OPEX, que tenemos el mayor OPEX, estamos realmente ahead de la game. Pero, por supuesto, debemos de negociar mejor, y debemos de trabajar juntos. No es que Paraguay o Brasil tiene Hydro y Argentina tiene WIND, y otros otros recursos. debemos combinar todos ellos porque, por supuesto, cuando los combinamos podemos usar el peso de los diferentes recursos en una manera más eficiente. Y eso es lo que vamos a tener demanda. No va a ser como, oh, vamos a ir aquí y tenemos que estar conectados para jugar como un equipo en la región.

Roberto, ¿nos comentaste antes del panel?

Before the panel, you said that one client was asking you to provide more than many times what the country's capacity is currently. Well, what is happening in Paraguay, because of the platform providing connectivity and digital infrastructure, which is what we do, Just to tell you, we have high volumes of traffic in Paraguay, and Nico knows this, but there was a proposal to go to even three times more during the first phase, so three times more than the current traffic in order to meet the AI demand.

So, let's wrap up. I think it's time to move on to the next sessions. But to do so, let me just highlight a few things that I believe stuck with me and I believe are relevant for all of us. First, clearly digitalization is a fast way to raise productivity. Para Latinoamérica y la Caribe, esto no es opción, es un imperativo de desarrollo. Hemos visto algunos ejemplos de los que podemos ver los beneficios de la familia rural o de las familias en las áreas rurales sin acceso a educación porque su conexión o su teléfono no es el correcto. o telemedicine, que es mencionado también por Jacqueline. Pero también tenemos Smart Grids. Tenemos automáticamente en manufacturación. Tenemos remote control de los crops. Sensor para la máquina que necesita preventiva de mantenimiento. Y todo eso necesita tres cosas. Capital, talento, y focus. porque creo que es la forma que podemos prioritarizar lo que hace sentido. Y tenemos que enfocarnos en proyectos que son relevantes, idealmente bankables y replicables. Y es donde IDB Investe se puede convertir a la parte de la privada sector porque es lo que queremos hacer y es quien queremos ser. the question is no longer whether to digitize the question is how fast and at what scale so with that I want to thank my panelists really really appreciate the effort to be here some of you even had to run in the last couple of minutes before making it to the but it's been great, great experience I hope we continue in touch and with that we can move on to the next session Gracias, Sergio.

Gracias a todos los panelistas por sus contribuciones viables. Recuerda que pueden compartir el evento en las redes sociales usando las hashtags Reuniones Grupo Vida y IDB Group Meetings. Me gustaría tomar esta oportunidad de saber que pueden descargar el App de IDB Group Anual Meetings disponible en Android y iOS. Through the app, you can follow the event live, access the detailed agenda, and stay updated on all forum activities. You can also register through the app to participate in the private sector networking session located near the registration area. Thanks again to all of our panelists. We're getting ready. También nos gustaría invitar al público a explorar los diferentes espacios preparados para ustedes. Nuestro siguiente panel se llama Investing in Innovation, Challenges and Opportunities. Let's begin. Please welcome our moderator onto the stage, Graham McMillan, CEO of IDB Lab. Welcome, Graham. Joining him are Jazmín Gustález Gil, co-founder and managing partner at I Think VC Paraguay. Bienvenido a Jazmín, Bianca Martinelli, general partner at Alexia Ventures, Brasil, Pablo Zamora, president of Fundación Chile. La palabra es tuya.

Muchas gracias. Buenas tardes. Este es un tiempo difícil. Las personas van a comer, o van a comer, van a las reuniones, pero has hecho el mejor panel. y ustedes no han realizado esto todavía. La razón que puedo decir eso es porque mi colegas aquí son los que realmente están haciendo el trabajo. Son los que están en la fronte de la inversión de los líderes, los líderes de los líderes, los líderes de los líderes de los líderes que van a cambiar este región. Y como el CEO de la IDB Lab, no podría ser más emocionado de que se pueda escuchar su historia. Hice una prepa sesión en advance de este panel and it was a dream prep session because all you had to do is say three words and they went they knew exactly what to say how to share with one another their own experiences the things that they're seeing and so my hope is for today's panel we'll just repeat what we went through in preparation for this moment so again my name is Graham McMillan I am the CEO of the IDB Lab As you have heard and may know, the lab is the leading edge of the IDB group's effort to find and identify and support through investments and grants and technical assistance and capacity building the region's leading entrepreneurs with the solutions to address all of the challenges and opportunities that exist here in the region. Y I'm particularly excited to bring investors and entrepreneurs on this stage to help them tell their story and the story of the companies they invest in. So with that, are you ready? We're good. Okay, let's go. So I'll do a quick intro. I'm going to ask each one of you to tell your own story. Better to have one tell their own story than somebody else tell your story. Okay? So, we'll start here. Yasmin Gusal-Hil is the co-founder and managing partner of I Think Gracias, Graham.

I'm so happy to be here. Welcome to Paraguay to everyone. So my name is Jasmin Gustale. I am Paraguayan, as you can hear. Four years ago, with my co-founder, Juan Cruz, we founded iThinkVC to invest from Paraguay to Latin America in emerging ecosystems in companies and startups. que son de emergencia. Así que estamos muy contentos de estar aquí.

Un gran partner de IDV Lab. Y nos vamos a hablar en diferentes idiomas. Así que tenéis que tener tu dispositivos, si tu preferís. A la izquierda es Bianca Martinelli, la General Partner de Alexia Ventures en Brasil. Gracias.

Gracias por la invitación, Grame, y la team de IDV. It's my first time in Paraguay also So I'm extremely happy to be here So yeah, I'm Brazilian Based in Sao Paulo My career really started As an ecosystem builder at Endeavor I worked for 12 years in the organization And had been interacting with IDB for a long time We've been partners For a long time And then I went on to become an operator At a SaaS company Back in Brazil Doing international expansion That has truly been the focus of my career All of my career has been building bridges and expanding organizations. And that is really the lenses through which I sit today as a general partner and investor at Alexa Ventures. We focus on writing checks to founders from Latin America, building artificial intelligence, native companies that can grow global.

Very, very cool. Way more to come in both of your stories. En nuestro héroe de ancho, porque esto se siente como una carrera de ruedas, Pablo Zamora, quien es el presidente de Fundación Chile, entre muchas otras cosas, como lo entiendo. Pablo, quizás compartas tu historia y luego vamos a entrar.

Hola, buenas tardes.

Gracias a la invitación. I'm Pablo Zamora, presidente de Fundación Chile. I'm also the current director of Banco Estado, the public bank of Chile. My career has been in the field of science and biotech, I have founded companies, so I'm trained as a scientist, but I transitioned from the world of the bench to the world of IP, then to company building, and now I'm in the supporting governments area, I'm supporting public policy and innovation development and investment. So I publicly thank IDB Lab for a partnership with Fundación Chile. We were the first hub in the region working with Fundación Chile and with the government. So I've gone from the bench as a scientist to now being an angel investor and working in the sector.

I forgot to tell that before I think I was working at the Minister of Finance and the Central Bank here in Ottawa. So, I was behind the scenes with this annual meeting, so I know how to feel to organize this big meeting and how big it is to do this in Paraguay. So, I'm very proud to.

As you should be. And, of course, thank you to our hosts, the Paraguayan government. It's been a tremendous first day, a couple of days. And very proud to have a Paraguayan here on the panel, which reflects, in so many ways, the lab and our history. It's a long history, as I've learned. y, como pueden imaginar o no, solo dos meses en el trabajo en este rol. Pero he sido un partner en el lab en muchas otras formas por muchos años, y ahora hay un 30-plus año de historia, y hay todas maneras de diferentes partners que el lab o el MIFE ha trabajado con, Fomin. Y podría haber sido en una de sus seats myself, en cualquier forma, pero lo que drew me a el labo fue esa historia de la idea de la idea, Belief in the crazy A belief in the risk Ensuring that you have the tools And the support And it's an intangible value Just like the entrepreneur Now a successful entrepreneur At least commercially There's valuations And that matters If you're an investor You want to make sure that your numbers are right And you deliver And that's what you'll tell us more on But I'd actually like to start Maybe And Pablo will go And we'll go this way Why do entrepreneurs matter? ¿Por qué deberíamos cuidar de los entreprenueños?

Cuando te enfocas en los entreprenueños, hay buenas razones para hacerlo, por varias razones. Número uno, es porque los entreprenueños y la entreprenería pueden proporcionar soluciones más rápidamente a la sociedad, más rápidamente que a nadie. Cuando yo era un científico, yo tenía que ver mi patentes en los magazines, y yo tenía que generar un impacto social o económico, incluso si era muy urgente y necesaria la capacidad de tener ese tipo de impacto. So, entrepreneurship is a way to mobilize society in economic terms, in social terms, and in a region like ours to help talent to take that accumulation of know-how on the public sector and get it to have impact in society. Así que no es algo que solo se ve en términos económicos, también hay que tener una visión social de eso y mostrar cómo el mundo del conocimiento y el mundo del negocio puede llegar a un efecto positivo, una solución que estos inversores, que son los empresarios, que pueden poner en la sociedad.

I actually love this question so much Graham, thank you for starting with it because I think it sets the tone for our entire panel we're all here because of course we want to generate returns but more than anything we do what we do because we believe entrepreneurship is a catalyzer in many ways my own journey really started and I think Endeavor had a crucial role in this in the lenses through which I see the world when I realized the power that entrepreneurship has en lo que se llama economía de desarrollo, ¿no? La importancia de enseñar cómo hacer, y no solo proporcionar el fish, y asegurarse de que desde una innovación standpoint, desde un empleo de desarrollo, que se puede multiplicar ese success. Eso impactó me right away cuando empecé a trabajar en Endeavor, y yo sabía que lo que lo haría en mi vida, sería en diferentes chairs, pero alrededor de la empresa. Y creo que la otra aspecto, besides la economía de desarrollo, es muy inspirador y cultural, es el impacto de un modelo modelo. Cuando se ve un entreprenor construyendo algo que es enorme, que es impactante, que puede cambiar sus vidas, es imposible no ser inspirador y decir, si esa persona puede hacer eso, yo también puedo. Y el momento en que empecé a lidiar con esto, es como un bug que hits cuando se dice que es imposible de salir de este ambiente where innovation, where hope and opportunity because we know we're living tough times in the world right now and of course we have to acknowledge it but from a day to day when we see entrepreneurs surpassing all of the obstacles it gives us hope for a better future.

Yasmin, before I turn to you one of my favorite conversations I had about teaching a person how to fish and that expression is in entrepreneurship and the work that we support it's not only teaching them how to fish it's teaching them how to develop a company that catches fish, markets it and brands the company and trains other people how to fish and that's kind of the through line so I appreciate your comments Yasmin, your perspective on why entrepreneurs matter I'm going to turn into Spanish pero dos cosas Two things that are really my passion in this world First, it's 3.30 or so this afternoon.

Think about everything you've done today. All of the apps that you used, the question that you asked, chat GPT, your email, the WhatsApp, what you had for breakfast today. All of the companies behind that and all of the companies that have an effect on our daily lives, That happens because of entrepreneurs that maybe got started 10, 15 years ago. Pablo will tell us the story soon. But these are companies that transformed our lives, that make us more productive, efficient, inclusive. All of that was through entrepreneurship. Another analogy I love is that large corporations, or even the government, it's like an ocean-going sea liner. es gigante, pero se llega a la porto y no se puede llegar a la porto. Ellos necesitan pequeños motos para descargar pasajeros o cargos. No hay que estar sin eso sin eso para un gobierno o un gran corporación. Y eso es lo que los entrepreneurs son for. Ellos son más nimble, se mueve más rápido.

Eso es lo que deberíamos mirar. i am i'm inspired by your journeys to take the risk of trying to invest in entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and innovation being the crazy entrepreneur with the wild idea that has a restless passion to solve problems is a very special skill and there and being an entrepreneur is vital to the dynamism of the region and developing these solutions is one as an investor and entrepreneurs even more crazy yes yes, why yes because especially when you start

this for the first time in ecosystems that there is so many less angel investors so many little angel investors or so many there is no ecosystem in Paraguay especially so we focus investing in entrepreneurs coming from Ecuador Perú, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. We started four years ago with this fund. Actually...

Tell us about the fund. What stage, how much capital? Are you raising capital now?

We invest in early stage. We focus in... We are agnostic when we invest in terms of we invest in all verticals because we want to look for the best entrepreneurs on those five countries. So we have 20 investments in en el FUN 1. Y tenemos más inversiones que hacer. Este es el año pasado. Así que, los entrepreneurs, las manos de los que nos han hecho. Porque estamos en la última. Y también nos empezamos a hacer follow-on inversiones.

Y tu equity.

Sí.

Series A, seed.

Pre-seed. Pre-seed and seed. Seed, seed, seed. Y ahora, estamos en FUN 2 para hacer un descanso de los cinco ecosistemas. You know that five ecosystems have that like 10x in terms of number of startups, in terms of VC investment. So back then when we started, that was five years ago, when we started was only 2% of all the VC in Latin America. Spanish LATAM and now it's 6%. So look to this small ecosystem because we are growing a lot.

Juan Pablo, your journey in becoming an investor, ¿Cuál es tu perspectiva sobre la oportunidad, la disciplina que tuviste que traer a eso? Es especial.

Creo que mi viaje es quizás un poco diferente a otros entrepreneurs normales. Como científico, tuve que crear una empresa, crecerla de 3 a casi 1,000 personas, became a unicorn we invested almost 500 million dollars in order to raise 500 million dollars in a global network by the way with endeavor support we had to have a really clear idea of how vc works of what kind of vc i want to be how i want to treat entrepreneurs what's the lead time to my response how i will provide support so the way i approached investment really has more to do with the pain that I experienced as an entrepreneur because I've had experience with good venture capital and bad venture capital and not everyone in the investment world will empathize with the person on the other side of the table, the entrepreneur I had come from the United States with my two partners, I was a professor in the UC system in the US, another one was a Harvard professor I said let's go back to Chile and start a company and my colleagues and I I had a good reputation in the United States, and the fact that we were in Chile, that was enough to make it so that people didn't trust us. And there were no successful case examples at that point. So we had to go out to the world and talk about our idea, which was to have deep learning and apply that to massive feeding systems. y hay grandes capitalistas en Asia y en Estados Unidos que creían que no podían hacer lo que querían hacer en Chile. Hubo un fallo de confianza en los mercados locales. Esto es más de 10 años atrás. Y no había crecido que el talento en nuestros países hubiera la habilidad que necesitaría para crear una compañía global. Así que tuvimos que hacer dos cosas. First, in order to raise $400 million, you have to pitch to 50 VCs throughout the world in order to get to that amount. Then second, you need to be able to convince them that capital in Chile makes for a good investment because of its cost, because of the talent, because of the network, and because in Chile we're a small market, it's well-ordered, and when you have empirical evidence in a small orderly market like ours, That can be scaled up to more competitive markets like the U.S., perhaps Mexico, Japan. So, to answer your question, what I learned as an entrepreneur made me realize what kind of investor I want to be. And I was very poor before, and I couldn't do this before, but now I'm on the other side of the table. And I personally look at the founders of a company, the team, the technological disruption that comes from these companies and the ability to scale that up, especially when it comes to relevance. The relevance of the solution for me is very important. So I'm very picky when it comes to picking a company that beyond the yield, it's about having a solution that society urgently needs, which is why I'm into technology, climate change, agriculture, human health, because this is something that we all share. And when you work together, you get a solution that gets faster to the market.

As an angel investment person. Honestly, so I always say I started my career doing, you know, venture capital without the capital. It was 2007 and what I was doing, you know, choosing founders to support, supporting them but without the capital was truly a lot of what I do today. And I think what I have come to understand throughout my journey as an ecosystem developer and as an operator is really the role of capital in actually fostering those journeys and how important it is. I myself also never thought, oh, yes, sure, I will become a capital allocator. That was not my main motive for becoming a GP at a fund. It was truly the impact and the role that I would have in changing those lives and those economies. That has always been my drive. But to your first point, Graham, which I love, if entrepreneurs are crazy, if we are crazy of doing this, You know, I actually think entrepreneurs are contrarian by nature and they need to be. And I actually always loved that. You know, when I started working at Endeavor, coming out of business school, everyone was saying, Endeavor, what are you doing with your career? Because no one knew what the organization really was. And when I come back to Brazil 12 years later when I was living in the United States, it was mind-blowing to see the effect that it had had in the ecosystem from a cultural standpoint as well as an economic one and now as I build Alexa Ventures with my partners it feels so much like a startup we are we are founders ourselves of this startup that is backing the new generation of founders from Latin America actually even coming back to Latin America because I was living in the United States which is a much more developed world but to be to have the courage to go back to my country and say look I'm going to build those bridges from Latin America to the world that was also contrarian and from a vc standpoint from a venture capital standpoint that's what where alpha really is that's where we'll get the better returns when you are seeing something potentially some other people's are some other other people are not so i love that and i love that you know we can talk more about the ecosystem and how we're seeing it but i myself and i'm and i am an optimist about what we're living here in terms of talent in terms of access to capital in terms of what technology is allowing us to do. It's incredible. Latin America is not behind this wave. Latin America is building with the world at the same time, and that is massive.

Now, and before I... I'm going to actually come right back to you, Bianca, on maybe a more specific question, but for those of you who are not familiar, and I would hope most of you are, Endeavor is one of those organizations that has created a generation of talent that learned that ecosystem of talent and intention and discipline and focus and repeatability has led to countless people out in different regions around the world doing the very thing that you're doing. And that matters. So it's the investment and the discipline with the term sheet and the cap table and the side letters and all the attorneys, of course. All of that discipline and investment matters. But where that talent comes from, comes from an ecosystem. And Endeavor is an interesting example de cómo emergimos de uno de esos ecosistemas. Pero voy a descargarlo a algo que creo que es parte de la narrativa. ¿Truth o la ficción? No sé, lo voy a preguntar. La líquida de paths. En América Latina, hay energía, hay oportunidades, el tiempo horizonte es tan exciting. Pero, como inversores, ellos quieren su dinero de vuelta. ¿Dónde está la líquida de vuelta, especialmente en ventura?

Yeah, well, I'll start with where I think money is flowing in. And I think right now, more than ever, money is flowing into capital efficient business models with good unit economics. And never have I seen in my almost 20 years of working in the region, never have I seen so many interesting opportunities to investing across all verticals, agriculture, energy, as Graham said, fintech. So many fintech opportunities were becoming a very important role model. Brazil, in particular, is being very pioneered on so many fronts. So it's been amazing from a deal flow perspective, right? But venture capital works in cycles. And so liquidity matters because you need to actually recycle that capital to be able to continue investing in the region. And that is crucial. And that is also the very important role that organizations such as IDB Lab por la industria también. Desde mi perspectiva, creo que cuando hablamos de liquidez en Latinoamérica, tenemos que ser muy real sobre lo que ellos significan, realmente. Y creo que tenemos que hablar de M&A oportunidades y secundarios como una muy importante oportunidad para generar liquidez para la región. Estoy optimista porque estaba revisando algunas stats, Just last year, we had an increase in exits of the rate of almost 180%. So I think that it's actually improving year over year. I do believe in the next two years, we're going to have much more. We're seeing there is a Kauffman Fellow. I'm part of this fellowship that is pretty much Endeavor for VCs. There's a Kauffman Fellow from Chile who's based in Mexico, Antonia Rojas, who created a fund only focused on secondaries, meaning buying shares from other funds and providing liquidity to the sector. That is crucial. We need more of that. We need more structures that can allow for that liquidity instrument to be taken in place. Another very important player in this ecosystem to generate liquidity is corporate venture capital. So corporations are becoming more and more in-depth. They are going more and more in-depth in pretty much investing, building open innovation, getting closer to the startup ecosystem. Y yo diría que es bueno pensar en los mercados libres, los bancos de Latinoamérica que son importantes modelos y han IPO, pero eso no será el camino de la mayoría de las empresas de la región.

Yo creo que los secretarios, M&A y los corporativos van a jugar un papel importante en eso. ¿Puedo añadir algo? ¿Puedo decir algo? Aquí hay M&A y secundarios. Y esto es parte de la cura de donde estamos como ecosistema, como ecosistema, como ecosistema, como ecosistema. Ahora estamos viendo más fondos enfocados en secundarios, más familia office, corporaciones, abriendo su capital, abriendo su nuevo modelo de negocio. Pero creo que también es un trabajo que IDB Lab debería enfocarse más. es que trabajamos con muchos de los inversores que son corporales y muchos de ellos tienen grandes negocios de negocios y están abriendo estos negocios. Pero luego te consultas y te consultas con ellos lo que están interesados en lo que están interesados en. Es solo... Es más como real estate cosas. Y luego te preguntes, ¿qué es esta compañía que está haciendo? ¿Qué es la revenue? Digitech, y no saben cómo hacer este negocio. No es porque no quieren, es como es tan distorsión de ellos. Así que hay un trabajo que se ha hecho, especialmente en los ecosistemas en Latinoamérica.

Juan Pablo, por favor. Gracias. Gracias, señor. Gracias, señor presidente.

Me acuerdo con Yasmin y Bianca, pero tenemos que reconocer unos factores y realidades. First of all, our venture capital market is so much newer than a long-standing one like the U.S. So to compare liquidity from our market with markets like that, it's completely unfair in terms of timing. Second, capital availability. In Latin America, there's less availability of capital and financial flows that would lead to liquidity. What governments need to do is attract investment funds that have experience, that can help our local investment funds do a better job to invest better and to apply better practices so that we can get liquidity like we see in other more competitive markets. Chile deployed an enormous effort program to attract venture capital to Chile. It's called Startup Chile and that's when we realized that our entrepreneurs did not know how to build global companies. They were basic investors that weren't investing in technology. Now Startup Chile has been around for 15 years and the transformation in Chile has been flawless. We've had more than 2,000 empresas crearon con enorme impacto económico, y eso fue por incentivos de la política de gobierno para crear empresas. Hemos trabajado con 82 países, muchos de ellos operan en Chile, y ellos engañan con nuestros emprendedores para ver cómo atraer talento global, cómo trabajar con inversores, para crear empresas, poner un board de administración, cómo asegurarse you get the right talent so because we are late to the race there are a bunch of things that mean that we have to be smart about getting competitive and now we realize that despite the fact that private equity at least in chile has moved into venture capital but they came in with a private equity mindset so they're not really doing real vc they're doing deal done and we need to change Y eso implica un cambio cultural. Hace cuatro años, la Aborita Administración comenzó a trabajar para attractar internacional funds para darles tax incentives para que puedan co-investir con nuestros fondos y nuestros fondos tienen acceso a un estilo de gestión, a un nivel alto nivel. Y ahora los primeros investimientos están sucediendo en Chile. Están usando nuestros fondos y nuestros fondos están competiendo en la economía global. So, there are actionable items that can be promoted through industrial policy, which leads to greater maturity for our entrepreneurs, our VCs. And what I'm asking for is that we start to develop the strength that we need to have specialized VCs. Many in our region are agnostic when it comes to this. And the pipeline is not sufficiently large. Chile. We have about 2,500 startups that are well-established, raising capital, and since three years now, we have three tech funds. We have accelerators in tech. We have specific investment funds in food tech and ag tech. Not all of these were created in Chile. Some of them came from the outside. We brought them in, set them up in Chile in order to start investment in that sector so i believe that the right public policy can promote uh markets and segments and that increases uh confidence in the market we don't have interventions as we had before with the sovereign funds all of that it so it's not just the matter of will and having vcs do a better job and and entrepreneurs do a better job rather what we need is an incentive so that the structure, the innovation ecosystem that's based on venture capital for it to come to a stage of maturity which means getting private equity to move into VC to change the mindset toward VC to get good practices in VC to attract talent and have the multipliers for the region. Juan Pablo, can I just share with you Endeavor when Startup Chile began I can tell you how powerful that was because all entrepreneurs wanted to go to Silicon Valley, but with this, and many of us from Latin America used to talk about that, no, I'm going to start up Chile, I'm going to Chile, and that led to a cultural exchange. I really agree with that role when you have infrastructure beyond public policy where central banks or governments are involved, as is happening in Brazil, when everyone is supporting. It's very interesting when it comes to Latin America's financial architecture, as an example. But what the Brazilian Central Bank has done now, which is to ensure a real-time payment structure, that changed the way finance works in our country. Just to give you an idea, VIX, which is this real-time payment infrastructure, tiene más de $16 trillones en transacciones, 7 veces Brasil's GDP. So, I'm sorry, I switched to Spanish without even noticing, sorry about that. Just putting on my previous hat as a policymaker.

Risky and contradictory to do that kind of public policy. So it's giving the money of locals like Paraguayans y otras personas para venir al país. Es increíble. Y ahora, después de 15 años, puedes ver el impacto. Y es increíble. Hemos ido a Chile en los últimos 15 años, y también pude ver la diferencia.

Es una ventura de gobierno. Claro, sí. Quiero agregar un dato que para nosotros es muy importante.

La economía es muy importante para nosotros. la startup economía, la economía de la escala de la economía de Chile. La economía fue cambiada por grandes corporaciones. La economía de la economía de Chile y tuvimos que generar datos, lo que hicimos en Fundación de Chile, donde nos mostró que entre 40 y 50% de nuevos trabajos de nuestras empresas. Cuando las empresas transnacionales desplazan por la pandemia, when there's layoffs in mining that employee base in Chile they don't want to go to well-established industries they want to start their own company and they want to work in startups and scaling up 50% of the workers in startups is a very strong signal that we need to continue to push in that direction One of the studies I read I think it was a year or two ago by McKinsey Institute talked about the relationship with startups and small but growing businesses with large companies.

That is an ecosystem as well. Putting aside corporate venture, where these larger companies, whether they're domestic or multinational, what role do they play in your strategy? Obviously, there's potential secondaries and all of that, Pero es una relación importante, que ellos son muy simbioticos.

Es la columna vertebrale.

Es la parte superior, es muy importante.

Yo soy también el presidente de la Paraguay MBC y hacemos mucho esfuerzo para traer las corporaciones a este rol, porque si vas a la misma área y quieres hacer todo este impacto, pero siempre los investidores, los VCs y los entreprenos. Pero estas empresas tienen la habilidad de comprar cosas de las startups, de aprender mucho de las startups. Y no vamos a hacer la diferencia en un ecosistema sin las corporaciones. En los últimos dos años, 25% de los investimientos en Latinoamérica han sido por corporaciones, CVC investment. y antes era solo 14% esto ha estado creciendo mucho pero creo que hay un montón de trabajo y talento es probablemente parte de eso Bianca, por favor talento, ¿sabes? sí, absolutamente yo iba a decir yo iba a decir una conferencia que yo attended en el salvador de idb en el que yo bueno, yo creo que nos pagamos El otro player que creo que es muy importante en este ecosistema son los trabajadores de familiares,

pero hay un proceso muy importante para ellos, porque están aprendiendo sobre cómo invertir en ventures, y nos preguntan mucho. Como GP, escucho de tantos LPs, principalmente desde el Brasil, que queremos aprender cómo elegir las mejores empresas, qué sectores son los que realmente se encuentran, qué AI hará para diferentes sectores. Así que ellos nos relyan como partners desde un punto de vista educativo. Y lo que yo vi IDB haciendo en El Salvador, que me gustó, fue esta reunión de familia, para que puedan realmente discutir su rol en el ecosistema. Creo que eso es crucial, y educación es realmente clave aquí para permitir que nos mature como ecosistema en Latinoamérica como un.

Y eso es uno de los atributos, los atributos especiales que el Labo tiene y ha tenido, es la flexibilidad de traer comunidades, expertos y networkos. Y creo que el próximo Get Forum, que será en Ecuador, y invitamos a todos ustedes a visitar, porque han conocido tres increíbles entrepreneurs y inversores aquí. multiply that by a thousand maybe not quite a thousand It was amazing, I really recommend October 6 and 7 You know more than I do, it's amazing Ecuador, we invest there so we have to know It's an amazing event that we are very excited to produce Let me ask you before we start to come in to the end of the session Our previous panel which we kind of heard porque estábamos preparando para este tema hablamos de AI ¿Cómo es AI impactando tu día a día, tu estrategia? ¿Es es aumentando? ¿Es es disrupting? ¿Es es enhancing? ¿Qué es para ti Juan Pablo? Quizá vamos a empezar con ti y trabajar así ¿Es es escarible? ¿Es es emocionante? ¿Es es todo?

Bueno, como científico I worked with AI back in 2010 when I was teaching in the U.S. The first AI company was deep learning, machine learning, and all those combinations that seem minor today but were quite sexy back then, 2014, 2015. And it was quite disruptive at the time. And it made us more competitive. mi compañía comenzó la compañía de la compañía de comercio en el mundo. Nosotros vamos desde $0 a $600 millones en dos o tres años. Porque de un modelo innovador, nos hicimos nuestros inversores a entender nuestro tecnología y lo que hicimos con ello. Tenemos un perfil de la compañía de IT que mezcló AI con los productos de comercio. Así que hicimos un buen trabajo. Y esa compañía hoy no creo que sería tan successful. porque hemos llegado a un punto de saturación, así que hay muy pocos elementos. Creo que para ser un elemento en AI, debemos ser en control de la tecnología. Y creo que nosotros fueron inteligentes porque hemos desarrollado nuestro propio tecnología, nuestro propio datos, nuestro propio line de conexión, datos de datos. Cuando trabajas con AI y estás añadiendo valor, using your own knowledge and you're not just following the wave of what is happening on the market which uses AI as a commodity, codes are commodities, so it's really hard to see companies that are fully disruptive unless they're one AI developers and others that use a different approach, a different way of usan AI, uno que es único. Tenemos estudiantes de América en América desarrollando AI y apps. Así que llegando con un nuevo app o otro algoritmo de algoritmo en el región, cuando no tenemos la capacidad de computación que necesitan, muchas empresas están bajando cuando se trata de tecnología. Creo que luego se convierte tecnología, contribuyen a la economía, pero no vamos a ser el protagonista. No vamos a cambiar la economía de nuestros sectores. Y creo que eso es significativo. Recientemente, he trabajado con muchos países en la región, lanzando TAN-GPT en Chile un mes hace un mes. Por la primera vez, toda la región decidió. Tenemos que tener más de 80 instituciones, spanning Caribbean, México y todo el camino a Chile, provided data that do away with the biases of the global north, which determine the predictive models based on the data they use. So we used our own cultural database, our own biodiversity, strategic minerals. If we mine our own data plus we use a specific AI approach, that will benefit the region. If we don't take that approach and continue to be users, we will be the last train car. China came first, the U.S. came first, Asian countries followed, and then we were just observers. So we're not going to be on the front line. That's going to be a problem for us.

I am fascinated by AI, and I will say I think each and every one of us needs to embrace the technology. It is happening, it is here, it is going to reinvent the way each and every one of us work, period. I think we need to be proactive and we need to embrace it. From an investor's standpoint, I fully understand and appreciate your point on Latin America in comparison to other regions. Pero, como he dicho antes, estoy muy emocionado por lo que la inteligencia significa para Latinoamérica. Creo que es realmente el poder de la capacidad de cerrarse infraestructura que son long-lasting. Y creo que tenemos mucho talento en la región desde la aplicación. Estamos hablando aquí en Latinoamérica y en el Caribe, en la aplicación de la aplicación, que es donde, al menos, Alexa Ventures es muy enfocada en la nueva generación de founders. And we have outstanding talent that now has access to capital because capital and talent now, they're decoupled. You have access to capital globally as well. And the bar to actually be able to produce incredible companies from a technological standpoint is, you know, lowering. What you need is what I think we have so much as Latin American founders and executors and operators. We know how to deal with chaos. We're very resilient. We're very, very good in human relations and communication and being, you know, very, very approachable. That's the Latin nature. And I think that that puts us in a very important competitive landscape, position in the competitive landscape from a competition standpoint. More than that, I'm excited that we're seeing more companies from Latin America to build to the world, right? Like you did, like you're doing, you know. So I feel like this is absolutely inspiring. And the final point I would say, just for the legacy software companies in our portfolio at least, it's an absolute sense of urgency to make sure that your company is AI defensible and AI compatible. It's really important to move that direction.

Does that resonate?

Yes, but I want to add something.

Cuando tienes la capacidad de trabajar con tecnología para hacer algo que está corto, Paraguay, Chile, Brasil, al mismo tiempo tienes un competidor en Silicon Valley o New York haciendo lo mismo. Entonces, puede haber sido democratizado, pero ahora puedes tener 8 o 10 científicos haciendo eso using the same technology and making twenty dollars a month or actually it's many more to build an AI company but obviously it's democratized and you also have capacity but there's also competition and you can't overlook that I agree thank you minutes left in our session self-serving question if you Si fuera en mi seat, no literalmente, pero si fuera el nuevo CEO de la laboración de la laboración, ¿cuál sería tu primer prioridad?

Como un partner, como un investidor, como un grantor, ¿cuál sería tu primer prioridad? Quizás Yasmin, y vamos a ir el otro lado. Y una última palabra para nuestra audiencia, que le gustaría que ellos recuerdan que tú.

Yeah, we talked about that main priority today. I think it's liquidity. Liquidity, how can you bring more liquidity into LATAM? And we have to be very creative. We have been very creative in the last 20 years developing the ecosystem, but there are so many things. You have governments at the same time sitting in IDB group, So, this requires very creative solutions.

It's design, it's policy, it's all about focused liquidity.

Like, for example, a stock change of five countries at the same time. Or like IPOs, but in some stock change from Mercosur, I will be open, this kind of thing. What is the one thing you want our audience to remember? look at these small but big countries that are in latino america because they are growing a lot and there are great opportunities so if you want to do an angel investing look for paraguay look Ecuador, Perú, si estás creando a found, look at this frontier ecosystem. There is great Brazil and Mexico, but look at the growth of this small ecosystem.

Which can suit venture very well. Bianco, words of advice, what would you do if you were in my shoes, and what is the one thing you want our audience to remember?

I think IDB Lab has a very important role in ensuring capital continuation for the journey of founders who are building the next wave of technology in sectors that are crucial for the ecosystem of the region in particular as we go back to ai what's happening in terms of predictive analytics on rare diseases or the ability to actually provide very, you know, curated learning journeys for people across different nations and across different access, right, socially. I think that is huge. I think the technology is there. And I think there are incredible people in the region building. I think IDB Lab has a role to play in catalyzing that capital even further. and I'd love to be remembered as what is the legacy I want to leave behind building bridges and putting Latin America at the center stage of the world for the next I would say two to five years we will see global companies coming out of Latin America building world class companies not only for the region but for the world Fantastic Juan Pablo you can wrap us up with your inspiration Pero antes de decirnos una mensaje, por favor, share conmigo, ¿qué harías si hiciera yo?

Si yo fuera tú, Graham, el primero que yo haría es construir una agenda regional, una agenda regional que nos ayuda a entender las strengths que necesitamos construir en la región colaborativa. Then I would speak to IDB Invest and say, give us $1 billion for a fund of funds to trigger the VC funds that are aligned with the regional development agenda. And then I would put together a series of financial instruments so that the companies receiving funding could then access different instruments to make them global. So just $1 billion, that's all. A message for the audience, I would agree, in that Latin America's talent is crazy. We have indicators for PhDs that are excellent, also for scientific development. We need to convince the corporate world, and I hope they're listening, that they need to trust in local technology, que no pueden comprar tecnologías de otros países porque tenemos la capacidad de desarrollar lo que necesitamos de nuestros mercados, las distancias son cortas, los recursos están ahí, los talentos están ahí, y tenemos que decirle a nuestros líderes que innovación y agendas de desarrollo no debería ser politicamente tenemos que mirar 20 a 30 años en el futuro un final comentario gracias a todos por acompañarnos es mi personal y profesional

de trabajar con personas exactamente como tú gente ha preguntado ¿por qué hubiera venido a IDB Lab? no tengo que decir nada solo de mis compañeros hablar para mí y así ha sido un honor y un privilegio para escuchar su perspectiva. La inspiración es en valor tangible, pero la entrega de resultados con retornos y liquidez es en valor tangible. Así que muchas gracias. Gracias a todos por acompañarnos. Enjoy your afternoon.

Gracias, Graham. Y gracias a todos los panelistas. Muchas gracias. Bueno, ahora invitamos al público a explorar los diferentes espacios preparados para ustedes en la maíz de la Comunidad de la Conventa de la Comunidad de la Comunidad. Ahí encontrarás una data walla en Latinoamérica y la Caribe, presentando los figuras que ilustran la realidad y la potencia de la región. La Ministeria de Economía y Finanza de la Museo, featuring historias documentales y collections highlighting key moments en Paraguay's historia. También, una experiencia inmersiva showcasing proyectos de toda la región, combinando sonido y visuales que transporte visitors a cada iniciativa. Nos encourage a visitar estos espacios durante el evento. Recuerda que puedes descargar el IDB Group Annual Meetings App, disponible en Android y iOS. Through the app, you can follow the event live, access the detailed agenda, and stay updated on all forum activities. You can also register through the app to participate in the private sector networking session located near the registration area. Our next discussion is titled Strategic Infrastructure, Investing in Competitiveness. Ahora, por favor, bienvenidos a Elizabeth Roberechts, Managing Director, Infrastructure and Energy, de IDV Invest. Bienvenidos, Elizabeth. Es un gran placer tenerla aquí. Joining Elizabeth as panelistas son Sandra Maynard, Pro Vice Chancellor of Global Affairs from the Institute for Development Justice from the University of the West Indies. Fernando Ruiz de la Torre Esporrín, Country Manager for Paraguay and Uruguay, Grupo SACIR España. Luis Nunes, Fund Partner, Global Infrastructure Partners, BlackRock USA. And Rogerio Tavares, Vice President of Institutional Relations, Aegea, Brasil. Gracias a todos. Elisabeth, la palabra es tuya.

Gracias. Muchas gracias. Es 4 o'clock, todos están un poco cansados, pero ustedes son la gran cantidad de personas que han quedado para el panel más interesante de todo el día. Muchas gracias y congratulations por esa decisión. we've been talking a lot recently and in this annual meeting about data centers and AI and the changing technologies but we wanted to reserve some time to talk about things like roads and and hospitals and water and you know sanitation services and education and all of these kind of fundamental infrastructure that is so crucial to competitiveness and to productivity in the region and the work that we're doing and these are investors that are responsible for billions and billions of dollars of investment every year in the region so we really are pleased to have you with us today the the region faces a very significant gap in infrastructure and that's something that's been discussed quite a bit this 2.2 trillion dollar deficit this is a calculation from idb that's needed by 2030 which would be about one 3.1 percent of gdp of the region annually and it there's this persistent deficit in infrastructure investment and we we saw some statistics when we were walking onto the stage but to give some quantification of that gap the oecd and the pan-american health organization show that we We have about 161 million people that lack safe drinking water. And more than 330 million that lack safely managed sanitation. A lot of big disparities between urban and rural citizens. In the case of health, we have about, in the region, 2 doctors and 2.1 hospital beds per 1,000 people, compared to the OECD averages of 3.5 doctors and 4.7 beds. which constrains capacity constrains productivity you know it constrains people's well-being education there are significant gaps in learning assessments indicate students in the region perform substantially below oecd benchmarks gaps equivalent to several years of schooling that limit their skills and long-term economic dynamism and why do we care you know it it's sort de, I guess, not super exotic, the connection between these things and the impact that they have in the region and why we at IDB Invest focus on them so significantly. But just to give one concrete example, we had a signing today of a transaction, a ceremony for a transaction in Ruta del Este here in Paraguay that we did with Sacir. And this is the expansion to the Ruta 27 here in Paraguay that's going to save every single car 25 minutos en transit. That's a massive savings en just overall time and efficiency. So this is really important. And what we also want to make sure that the private sector understands is that these are opportunities for investment. It's not just, you know, there are gaps and the public sector has to figure it out. The public sector has limits in what it can do and they're more and more drawing on the private sector to help address these issues, finance operate and and control these infrastructure gaps so this panel is bringing together experts with different vantage points investors operators leaders who will share their insights regarding turning these infrastructure opportunities into real projects that can be scalable and have lasting impacts so I'm going to begin now with the discussion I thank you all for being here very very much. Fernando, this is going to be a multi-language, so start up your translators if you are using them. One of the points that we often hear investors talking about, and I certainly understand this, is that they're eager to invest and there are not a lot of bankable infrastructure projects in the region, not enough. Saseer is obviously one of the largest and most important developers, construction companies operators of the region all over the region from your experience delivering projects what differentiates a project that actually gets built from one that sort of stays in the pipeline and doesn't quite make it fruition Hello everyone and thank you Elizabeth and thank you to the IDB and IDB invest for inviting us for inviting sasid and also for having us on this panel thank you to my colleagues and to the audience so what sets apart a project what makes it work and actionable so

that citizens can benefit rather than having projects that are filed away for years and no puede ser implementado. Yo diría que, como todo en vida, es sobre preparación, lo que está haciendo, y anticipación de condiciones. Y el primero, yo diría, es la bancabilidad. La bancabilidad y la mejor bancabilidad posible. Los inversores buscan para claridad. Los buscan para asegurarse cuando se trata de recuperar fondos invested in building assets, so it's important for a cash flow to be secure and clear, have credibility and also have reliability in that regard. And for that, it's better to be able to recover the debt as opposed to projects that have demand risk like highways and tolls and when the risks are present it's important to have measures to mitigate them so bankability is the first thing I would mention and then there's also it's also important to from the very beginning have clear ESG criteria and parameters that's going to offer a dos-fold advantage. First, that's going to improve interest rates and it's also going to make it possible to have a better integration of the project with both environmental and social aspects in society. So that has an impact on the society and community's reaction to projects. So they need to have information. They need to be a part of a conversation and to be engaged in the preparatory phases. Another thing that has an impact on project selection is the allocation of risks. If there are multiple risks and if they're allocated, like, for example, buying land, getting environmental, architectural, or design permits, Es importante que todos estos riesgos sean claros identificados, y esto hace posible que los riesgos sean asesorados y mitigados. Los fondos de fondos son listos para aceptar los riesgos, pero deben ser mitigados. One last thing is that when you have long-term projects and contracts with 25 or 30-year terms or more, it's important to have evaluation clauses that envisage potential future events that are not foreseeable and which may have an impact on demand in the long run. Some years ago, we were in lockdown mode for a number of years, and that, I think, has led to significant changes in the demand we see. We have airports built under PPP systems that now, because of demand fluctuations, have no passengers. So it's important to have mechanisms that provide for redress, for corrective measures when situations change in a way that is unforeseeable when the project is being designed. Thank you. That's very interesting and very pertinent. The bank clearly agrees with everything you said. I think it's also worth mentioning that the IDB group is interested in support of that. The IDB team working on PVPs on developing solid projects to finance and build, and we've seen that in Paraguay and in other countries as well. Luis?

GIP y, por supuesto, BlackRock, en general, es un inversor más grande regional, un inversor global. Tienes una experiencia muy amplia y experiencia en otros países. ¿Dónde ves oportunidades en la región de LAC? ¿Dónde estás desplazando capital? ¿Dónde no estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás? ¿Dónde estás?

Buenas tardes a todos. Elisabeth, muchas gracias.

Buenas tardes a todos. Elisabeth, muchas gracias. Thank you very much for the invitation, thank you to the IDB, and also thank you to my colleagues on the panel, thank you for being here. Before I answer, I would also like to thank the IDB team, because our experience as originators y financiar sources de infraestructura en Latinoamérica, has found the IDB to be our major partner, not just in the diversity of currencies, lending in dollars and in local currency, with the capacity you've developed, but also because of your team of the individuals who have been there to support us so that we can continue to inject liquidity in the region so that the major sponsors like SACIER who believe in the region are in a position to finance its projects. And not just the projects, they are in a position to provide subordinated liquidity which enables them to invest in other projects as well. We are very much aligned with the IDB's philosophy. We believe that you need to leverage the existing capital, but our experience with a structuring team and with IDP Invest Management has been outstanding, so I would like to recognize that.

En el caso de que sectores prestamos y que sectores no prestamos.

Porque realmente estamos en todo el sector, y a lo que no prestamos. Estamos presentando en un solo sector que no es el sector carcelaria, y creo que el único que no es de interés es el sector penitenciario. Everything else, from 3Ds, decarbonization, digitalization, and demographics, we are there. Also, everything that has to do with data centers, generation, transportation, infrastructure, water. So we are involved in all sectors. But in that context, it's also important to understand that we have different types of liquidity pockets. We have the investment grade liquidity, which is long-term, fixed rate. Sponsors don't have to take on floating rates that may change in the future. Y lo que necesitamos es para el país o el proyecto que tiene un nivel de inversión, si eso es el caso, y luego vamos a explicar por qué esto constraintes la región. Then we have other portfolios that are more short-term, but where we don't mean to compete with banks. We're not trying to crowd them out. We rather would like to provide liquidity to investors by providing subordinated funding or mezzanine financing. So it's a sector that commercial banks do not lend to because of existing regulations. but it's important for shareholders so we have five to seven year funds where we are subordinated to the project debt or to other senior loans the sponsor may have. So we work at that level too to bring in that liquidity angle to projects.

Thank you very much for your comments on IDB Eso es lo que queremos. Queremos buenos partners en la región para coordinar con ustedes para aumentar su impacto.

Digitalización, demográfico change, esos tres temas que están cambiando la inversión de infraestructura en la región, esos han sido muy útil para mí en términos de entender diferentes tipos de cosas que están empujando la inversión. let me move now to rogerio rogerio in in the case of igea and really the water sector in brazil is a bit of a case study of success in many ways this attracted a significant private investment with igea being a clear leader in in this area what have been the factors that have driven this en la inversión de la agua y la sanidad de los inversores privados en Brasil. ¿Qué ha hecho estos proyectos verdaderamente investibles?

Primero, buenas tardes. Quiero agradecer a IDB por su invitación. Voy a hablar en portugués, porque en vez de combinar portugués y español, no creo que sea muy suceso, así que voy a hablar en portugués. es más fácil. Brasil en el sector del agua y sanitario está experiencing un momento muy interesante donde hay un montón de inversiones que tomó en lugar y eso básicamente es debido a la facta que hay un framework que es clear, es predictivo, y sets targets para universal service that provides more legal certainty for contracts when public-private partnerships and concessions are involved so in 2020 there is a a key report that led to a watershed moment in en el sector we have developed contract models or formats that are very good these are contracts contracts that provide peace of mind for the operator as well as for the investor because they normally have a well-defined risk threshold los mecanismos que son adecuado en términos económicos y eso proporciona un fondo para el investimiento para todos en addition a los contratos también tenemos operadores que tienen capacidad de ejecutar estos proyectos incluyendo nosotros en ese grupo estos operadores tienen que tener que tener que tener que tener que tener que tener These are operators that have good access to financial markets and that are able to deliver what was agreed. So these are operators with full capacity to implement and that is critical in order to get things to happen. These set of elements mean that long-term structured capital, or rather, with long-term structured capital with its arrival, then things can happen. Support for multilateral organizations like the IDB or IDB Invest, for us, it was critical. There was support for some large projects. there's still a lot to do the idb's participation in several funds that need to grow in order to capture more investment opportunities and reduce the average cost of financing so we are looking at a very positive scenario and that's why one can say that brazil has managed to establish a model a estructura que combina sustainability financial sustainability with social inclusion which is a very

important issue for us and for many countries in Latin America thank you no I see this as being a good example of a case where regulation really has had success there was a very ambitious goal set by the government of Brazil and the program has been very successful. Obviously Brazil has a certain scale that not every market has but this is a model that I think it's worth sharing and seeing how replicable it is because of the remarkable success that it's had in Brazil and of course companies like IGEA are making that possible. Sandrea, in sectors like education which is a little bit of a different model right? Projects can be smaller ¿Qué distinguishes oportunidades que realmente pueden, en tu opinión, attractar privado capital de los que no pueden? ¿Qué son los elementos críticos para considerar?

Bueno, primero de todo, gracias por invitarme. Es un placer estar aquí y a mis compañeros panelistas. Education is one of those areas that has this perception about being about the public good, firstly. So often, because there are uncertainties with regards to returns and bankability, as we've heard with all of my fellow panelists, a lot of investors tend to shy away from working in the education space or private investors. They feel that often the complexities around accreditation and approvals and, of course, often governments are the ones who have invested initially and they support elements of education. So moving it away from that perception is often a challenge. So really what we should be looking at is reframing education as an economic infrastructure. because by doing that it allows private investors to see the benefit of investing and how do we attract those we've attracted you thankfully with the international school of development justice and that is really looking out globally using technology not only digitalization but also using AI within that space to support learning but I think that often the challenge is when we're looking to attract investors they've got to also appreciate that there is a long term goal ahead in these areas particularly in education when you invest in education normally you don't realize the returns for maybe sort of 10 to 20 years, I mean I'm especially working in tertiary education so you more than likely would see the turnaround a little bit quicker but what we would like to see is the fact that private investors see the la valoración de inversión en sus empleados, la valoración de educaciones, para que puedan llevar algo de vuelta a esa organización y beneficiarse de su avance. Así que yo diría que tenemos problemas con la complejidad de regulación. Tenemos problemas con los problemas de regulación. Tenemos problemas con lo que es percibido como bankability. Y también recuerda que podemos realmente significativamente contribuyen de la educación sector a la que nos vemos en el futuro en la globalidad.

Y gracias por los comentarios. Creo que desde el IDB Invest perspectiva, se ve, en educación y en la educación hay un significado, hay un significado un significado para el sector público, pero hay también personas que están siendo underservados y que están able to contribute from their own resources to better health care, better education expanding their horizons and so if we can have private investment in that space and it can be very innovative and can be very use of technology and it's really a fascinating sector we can have a very significant impact and also related to new sectors for example mining, all the training that has to take place for some of these new sectors that en la región, también estamos tratando de apoyar eso. ¿Puedo añadir a eso, Liz?

Lo que usted ha dicho antes, lo que yo creo que es importante considerar aquí, es que cuando nuestros privados inversores están buscando en educación, recuerda a invertir en ese proyecto preparado. Eso es muy importante. Así que trabajando con ustedes, por ejemplo, en IDB Invest, hay tiempo invertido en ese proyecto preparado phase so that then eases and gives more confidence to the investor about the bankability of the project so you work with your education institution in that way and try to bring people together in groups in which in which they would work across larger sectors and we've gone global as our first la oportunidad y realmente apoyar a eso. Así que la preparación, menos enfasis en la regulación de frameworks que se expectan en el negocio, pero también apoyar a el desarrollo de ese proyecto desde el principio.

Totally agree, totally agree. Es el rol que queremos tocar, por sure. Luis, voy a volver a ti, hablando de cómo atrae attracting investors to the region because that's really a key for this originate to share you know passion that we have what are the key obstacles that prevent more private capital from flowing into these sectors that we're talking about today how can they be addressed is there something you know that idb invest should be doing or you know other other obstacles that need to be overcome En nuestro caso, y esto es específicamente sobre infraestructura, hay flujos muy largas, porque hoy en los mercados capitales, al menos hasta este año,

ha habido alrededor de 144 A-Regas, alrededor de 65 millones de dólares en la región. ese mercado es extremadamente profundo cuando miramos a los proyectos en el largo termo la principal barrera para nosotros es el proyecto de rating porque si el país tiene local currency flows, si es el proyecto de inversión, entonces el proyecto puede tener investment grade from the standpoint of its structure and that's very important so we have to work just like what Paraguay is doing a big effort in BAA in order to get sufficient investment grade that will attract capital because that's capital at the best price fixed rate long term which can be dispersed in not just a single issuance for a sponsor sometimes that's a problem because that leads to negative carry when I'm financing a project that I need to disperse over time so the traditional private placement there what we do it's more flexible for the sponsors purposes so So that's one challenge, how do we make it so that countries understand that fiscal discipline to finance infrastructure through PPPs without fiscal expenditure, rather to have a third party do it, that can help the country improve its credit. That's one challenge. Another challenge is the countries that already have investment grade, that have that type capital make sure that they don't lose their investment grade because that's something that we're also seeing because that that's going in the opposite direction of what I want in terms of the capital needed to develop infrastructure the other issue here is derivatives markets which it's still too small in So, in order for us to hedge, some projects have local currency, and it's hard to do that. We also feel that governments could make an effort in certain PPPs to do what Colombia did in some projects, which is to provide some support in dollars. The reason for that is that for sponsors on many occasions, especially when you don't have long-term pension savings, uh you'll fall short when it comes to financing projects sure they can do a mini perm uh but that's not ideal because there is a a significant risk of refis so we are working with local markets as we've done in colombia where we have peso denominated funds and with the idb in fact and we'll speak about this in a bit you know we've been working with the idb to create incentives for institutional funds in the country to get them to pick a fund manager that can run an infrastructure fund in local currency to give them that option because when it comes to those funds we're not competing with banks because these are 25 year terms So, local banks can go 7, 10, 12 years. We can take on the back end, the longer term portion. And we don't have a problem with being subordinates when it comes to debt payments where the banks would get the repayments first and we come in at the end. We have no problem with that, as long as the project has the creditworthiness, as mentioned by our panel colleague. Those are really the main challenges, but we are trying to develop a market for pension savings in the region because it's very important for the countries that have it, be that Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil. y los países más pequeños que están empezando, porque hay mucho que financiar, porque tenemos los países que estaban ahí antes, plus Venezuela, plus Argentina, que han sido negligenciados por 20 años, así que la necesidad de la región va a ser más grande, y necesitamos para hacer uso de las iniciativas en el hemisferio, donde es, de nuevo, una prioridad para el gobierno de la U.S. porque había un momento en el que no estaba countando, pero ahora estamos. Muy interesante, obviamente queremos participar en eso.

Tenemos productos financieros para mobilizar privadas placas en 144A en el región y local currency y that's something that IDB investors have been working to expand and build on Talking about the projects that Cesir has been focused on in multiple sectors what makes these projects appealing to investors if they're looking at options that they have globally for investment what do you think that is attracting investors to these types of projects how can these projects be designed para aumentar la confianza de la inversión de la inversión.

Bueno, yo creo que hay que partir un poco...

I think we need to look at the umbrella term here, which is institutionality. That starts off with not just a regulatory framework, but before that, it's the country's decision para desarrollar una política de infraestructura de inversión por los PPPs, debe ser claro en el largo plazo. Obviamente, eso sería el resultado de un plan de infraestructura de infraestructura para seleccionar los proyectos bancarios, y weed out los proyectos que no están. Entonces, la institucionalidad debe suceder, y debe cubrir muchas áreas. Pero, sobre todo, necesidad de compromiso de los países. Obviously, that would address the country risk to attract investors, as Luis was correctly pointing out. You also need trust in the legal framework. In very long-term projects and contracts, there are moments where differences can arise, and it's important to have a dispute settlement mechanism that's well defined, as neutral as possible and as is being done in Paraguay you need to work on prevention monitoring the evolution of that project because things don't always come out the way you expect so you need to have a third party there to advise the parties to avoid a dispute A dispute is always the last recourse Or rather going to court on a dispute is the last recourse Another important lesson that we've seen in countries That have a mature investment plan for PPPs like Chile We're starting to see contracts that are out for bids again after 25 years y las personas en el país que estaban desconocidas de estas infraestructuras, lo que era lo que era antes, ahora están preguntando, ¿por qué tenemos que continuar a pagar las tolas? ¿Por qué tenemos que construir este hospital? Así que es una lucha importante para los países que están empezando a cumplir con los planes de investimiento de PPP. Tienes que tener una conversación abierta con sus ciudadanos. People, I'm not talking about explaining technical complexities in a contract. I'm talking about explaining this in everyday language. What I was just saying, you have road travel that takes an hour, hour 15 minutes in 10 years. That's going to be 25 minutes of travel. And explain to people that's going to be a great gain for your quality of life. Eso es para infraestructura. También se aplica a las personas que cambie en las highways. Se corta a la pollution, la traffic, la noise. Es bueno tener esa conversación con la comunidad para que la gente pueda entender que realmente y entender lo que PPP contracciones son, cómo speedo la valoración que le danse a los países. and as people come into this over time people start asking why why are we playing paying a toll when this was built 25 years ago people need to know this because that's where criticism comes up where where people are saying things like why don't know why we're paying for this so it's very important to have a discussion to have an exchange with your citizens that's very important what i

Lo que I see is obviously, and we're more and more incorporating it into our daily lives at IDB Invest, is that the life of these assets is very long, and the investors change over the life of the asset. It's not the same necessarily investor at the beginning as there would be in year 15 or something. So let's figure out what's the best solution, and maybe there's a role for a development bank, or maybe there's not at each phase. But very, very interesting points. Ajea, Rogério, turning to you, in the case of Brazil, Ajea has successfully mobilized quite a bit of private investment for water and sanitation. What do you think have been the most important conditions from a regulatory or contractual market perspective to attract the capital in the case of water in Brazil?

What I think is most important, well, to begin, as I said earlier, the regulatory framework, which provides predictability and legal certainty, with that, things became easier. I think that's the core issue when it comes to a development bank or BNDES, the work that they do, which supported through templates for contracts, they did a very important work on that at a very professional level. They developed contract templates for a variety of operations. There's a lot of diversity within Brazil's territory, and they were able to identify solutions, templates for bids, for PPPs, and they did it with great skill, which provided peace of mind for investors, allowing them to get involved in these processes the issue also of having a well-developed capital markets as is the case in Brazil that certainly helped because you obviously need long-term resources that you can normally get multilateral uh the the bnds had some credit lines for this purpose but you need if you need something that's maybe not that long term in order uh to do what you need to do so uh capital markets uh today are quite welcoming to the issuance of of notes when when all of this started you could not no puede issue nada más de 5 años, pero hoy, puedes issue notes en 15, 20 años. Y eso cambió porque la idea es que la inversión en agua sanitaria es una long-term investment. Y si es bien estructurado, con buen management risk, If you have mechanisms in place that allow you to rebalance contracts, these lenders, the banks themselves that operate in capital markets, they can do placements, notes. Eso creó otro camino, un muy importante camino, que creó espacio para obtener los recursos que necesitan para allos de estos diferentes proyectos. Así que el mercado de capital es muy importante para nosotros en Brasil. y es muy importante llevar todo el financiamiento que es necesario para hacer estos proyectos de largo plazo. Así que eso fue muy útil. Y como un buen framework regulador, los templos también son muy buenos, la disponibilidad de recursos, el acceso de los mercados. Al final En el día, puedes obtener la estructura de long-term capital, gracias a todo eso. Creo que estamos en un buen lugar, despite el hecho de que los intereses internos de interés son muy altos, cuando la interés en el país, si tenemos que bajar un poco más, than investment in water and sanitation in infrastructure overall that would be a lot easier the growth in the debentures market in brazil has been just something like we i did a project there i can't i won't even say the year but it was we provided a guarantee for a solar project with for the debentures and it was needed at the time you know a guarantee because a solar project

with something so new and we have raised the rating with our guarantee it was great but now it's totally not needed you know and and the investors are taking construction risk and you know it's a it's a really amazing the the evolution of that market back to you sandra um uh in the case of education and again a very different market with a lot of challenges and i you're doing the work of some higher power in trying to educate our future but what are the key obstacles do you think in bringing these projects to fruition in the education sector in terms of labor, regulatory frameworks and so forth the key obstacles

really is ensuring that we work with private investors to drive forward the way academics and institutions and educational institutions ¿Qué es lo que los inversiones operan? Traditionally, I'm sure many of us here in this room, many of us watching online, have gone through the traditional route of education. You've gone up, you've got a degree, possibly a master's, some have gone to a PhD. And it's had a very traditionalist approach on its execution. What we need to look at is to draw in our private investors. Look at the regulatory frameworks, look at the importance of governance, look at efficiencies that can be built into the system. So education and health tend to work alongside with each other. And what they both do, as we see, not only do they provide a social benefit, but they also need human capacity to continue to provide that social benefit to the community. So when we talk about what can work, and my fellow panellists have said that, we cannot go ahead without partnership. No one side can do this alone. If we want to invest in what is going to come along in our future, if we want to invest in our human capacity, and more importantly, we want to keep our talent within our respective regions, we should be investing in education. no hay otra manera lo que está sucediendo en el momento y estoy seguro que muchos países que están viendo esto los educadores se van a ir a la cualificación y luego dicen oh, voy a ir a la global norte porque piensan más dinero y luego no se van a ir y no se van a ir a la comunidad y contribuyen a esa economía en la misma manera lo que queremos hacer es We want to work with education to modernize it. Let's work with innovation. Let's work with private investors to keep our talent within the region so that all the other industries will benefit as they continue to work from their space, but in a global space. Because there is so much talent that sits within our LAC region.

And we're losing it every day. and one thing that we really need to focus on is investments in keeping our educated young people within this region creating opportunities and I believe that that's through education very inspiring okay we're gonna enter the speed round because of my failure as a moderator to because it's such an interesting conversation but so in in one or two minutes Fernando what are some financing structures or blended finance or partnerships with development banks that you see as most promising for mobilizing long-term capital for your projects? In 90 seconds.

As you have rightly said, given the PPP contracts, the terms, which include construction risks, I think blended financing is most appropriate. You have the security of commercial banks. You also have the advantages offered by IDB Invest and the IDB. And then you have a subsequent phase where you involve institutional investors that have a more longer term horizon. So I think that that combination is what we are seeing in most of our projects because because it is what gives you the best result with the best applicable interest rates given market conditions and the context in the countries. Also, as I said in my first response, it is essential to have ESG criteria. They have to be embedded in the contracts because they have to give you access to investors who are ready to lend at lower interest rates. Plus, you're going to bolster the social benefits associated with those safeguards. And as a conclusion, I would say that Latin America and the Caribbean is in an excellent position to raise international funds long-term, on a large scale, provided that projects are technically sound, that they're financially predictable, y también que ellos proporcionan beneficios socio-environmental. Así que creo que esta es la perfecta combinación para nuestros países para continuar pursuing su desarrollo.

La componente socio-environmental y social esencial. Investor's care. Luis, ¿hay lecciones de otros mercados emergentes sobre la compartida de riesgo, o las innovaciones contractuales, o los vehículos de inversión que podrías pensar que Latinoamérica and the Caribbean could adapt to scale infrastructure investment?

I would say that I'm not an expert on Africa or Southeast Asia but when I've spoken with my colleagues who are I come to the conclusion that Latin America is in a good position. There are four key areas that I think would help us improve our markets in the future. First, that you are a leader when it comes to AB loans. I think that product is a hit. Our investors are very happy to have the IDB involved in a loan for the reasons Fernando gave for ESG aspects and also because there is no withholding tax. So for the sponsor, I think that also is an advantage. Secondly, there's your capacity, the capacity you've developed to lend in local currency. como el IDB hace, y creo que es algo que no todos los países pueden acceder ahora, pero muchos de ellos pueden borrow en la capital de la capital de la capital de la capital. Y tercero, estamos trabajando con el IDB de la estructura del equipo porque queremos invitarles a los co-investores en some local currency funds, not as investors, because that limits their lending capacity, but it's better to come in as a co-investor. And that complements the commitment our funds can make in a given project, because the IDB can come in as a co-investor. And finally, I think there's something you are considering, I'm not an expert, but it's Y creo que el IDB tiene una larga portafolio para empezar a buscar a las obligaciones de collateralizadas y enviar las transacciones en diferentes categorías a institucionales con un riesgo diversificado en el región, no solo geografía, sino también por industria o sector. The IDB does not have to delegate that, it can still be the lender of record and also be part of the structuring of the operation. I think your portfolio size makes it possible for you to explore that possibility.

In terms of innovation in the water and sanitation sector, do you have certain operational data or predictive maintenance, automation that can reduce risk, that will make investors, you know, attract investors while simultaneously expanding access to underserved populations?

Well, when you talk about technology, you need to look at predictability. And as far as technology and its use is concerned, we have an operational model that is based en automación de sistemas, real-time monitoreo y análisis de datos. Eso se aplica a todos los sistemas que usamos. Esto nos hace posible para nosotros trabajar en reducción de perdas, también para proporcionar mantenimiento para los sistemas up front. y es posible para aumentar la eficiencia operativa, lo que creo que nos pone frente a otros operadores. Y es principalmente porque tenemos esta tecnología que nos apoye. Es el link a la eficiencia operativa. Es algo que hemos trabajado porque nos permite deliver los resultados, para lograr los objetivos que están en nuestro contrato, y eso también nos permite reducir riesgos y atraer los inversores porque se sienten confianza en lo que estamos haciendo. Se pueden visitar nuestras operaciones y ver lo que parece como si estuviese en un painel de una nave espacial. ¿Qué es lo que se ve? Es como un espacio y un controlador, porque es muy sofisticado. La última palabra, Andréa, para que se vea la última palabra, y...

Y, obviamente, todos estos sectores requieren significant public-private investment. A lot de estos proyectos start con años de trabajo por el sector público.

En el caso de educación, ¿qué piensas de los modelos que pueden ser escalables? y aún se mantiene involving the private sector but maintaining this balance of equity and quality I think just when we're looking at a private investment they always we always look at businesses always think A bankable B is it scalable when we're looking at scaling it a lot of educational projects and or health projects tend to be very small dealing in specific areas particularly if you're dealing with rural parts in particular countries So, I just want to say to private investors, don't think it's not a bankable option. It really is. Look at aggregating this. Look at creating that network in which you can work nationally across that particular country and develop, whether it's village by village, city by city, and town by town. Think about how that model can be scalable in that way. y think about that PPP model don't be put off by the fact that there's a risk that governments may change administrations may change, policies may change and we all know that sometimes working with regulatory frameworks can be slower but the fact of the matter is it is still bankable and look at it over a long term investment so those sort of I would say pension schemes that are looking at investments sobre esos 10, 15, 20 años. Estas son ideal proyectos para realmente apoyar y desarrollar. Y obtener both social goods y profit.

Muy bien, muy bien, para terminar el panel. Y eso es realmente el mensaje que, ya sabes, me agradezco a todos los panelistas. Este público-privado aspecto de it, creo que IDB grupo es únicamente posicionado a tocar un papel importante en la región. we have our public sector working on all of these areas deeply connected to governments and supporting their initiatives and then the private sector through IDB Invest and IDB Lab investing in innovation, partnering with companies and universities to make these projects a reality, so thank you so much thank you to the audience, we appreciate your time and we'll move to the next panel, thank you thank you all

thank you Elizabeth It's time now, after taking this photo, to move to the final panel of the forum. Thank you very much again. Agribusiness and food systems, strengthening global supply. Let's begin. Our next moderator, Guillermo Foscarini, Managing Director Corporates at IDV Invest. Welcome, Guillermo. Bienvenido Rosario, presidente y CEO de Masi Group, Trinidad Antobago, Luis Tejado, Executive Director of Prolade Mexico and Matt Simpson CEO of Brazil Potash Corp from Canada Welcome everyone Guillermo the microphone is yours Thank you very much

it's a pleasure to be here with all of you and I want to start by thanking you for speaking with us at the end of the day Gracias por ver el video la producción accounts for about 30% of the world's renewable fresh water and accounts for 30% of the arable land in the world. The region produces enough food to feed 1.3 billion people, which is two times the population of the region. and while production accounts for 15% of the agricultural global production Latin America is the largest net food exporter in the world accounting for 45% of the global exports that says something about the leadership of the region and the competitiveness of the region it's a global leader in all types of agri commodities From soybeans, to corn, to beef, poultry, sugar, coffee, all types of fruits, fish, you name it. Latin America and Caribbean is the global leader in food production. In addition to that, the agri-food systems, and when we refer to the agri-food system, we talk about the integral value chain, from primary production all the way to trade and retail. and that involves also logistics, agri-inputs, and everything in between. So the agri-food systems account for about 20% of the jobs in the region. And it's an anchor regional value chain, shaping land use, ecosystems, and social inclusion. At the same time, the sector faces many challenges that are persistent and real. let me give you three numbers 33, 20 and 7 there are 33 countries in the region, in the Latin America and the Caribbean region but only 20 are net food exporters and out of the 20, only 7 in the region are exporters of staple food staple foods are mainly cereals that you eat every day so there are huge las diferencias de los países la región tiene un peso y persistente la seguridad de la región 30% de la población face la seguridad 40% de la población rural vive en la pobreza y tenemos que hablar de la clima y la relación entre la clima y el sector agrícola sector because the agricultural sector is a contributor to gag emissions but at the same time it suffers from the effects of climate and here in paraguay you know when uh the effects that climate can have uh with this extreme droughts that the country has experienced hurricanes in the caribbean are getting stronger uh floodings in other parts of the of the regions so el nino la niña that peru and other countries so the climate effects are real and are here to stay then we have we're facing other other problems like in big infrastructure gaps and inefficiencies along the supply chain productivity is slowing there is a recent flagship report from idb that that was published a few months ago that mentions that productivity at the farm level has slowed down from 1.7 historic historical average to 0.9 in the region and then you have a change in market expectations I know more traceability more deforestation free production that are reshaping the global landscape but but there are also big opportunities you know, rising population you know, as the population approaches 10 billion people we need more food changes in dietary habits creating more demand for fruits, for vegetables for animal protein more urbanization is driving also more consumption innovation is accelerating I think we all know the value of data the value of accessing data new technologies, precision agriculture climate smart practices animal genetics advances in seeds those are all innovations that are progressing at a fast pace and then as I said value chains are evolving and this evolution is creating new opportunities along the supply chain so the challenge here or the opportunity is not that the region can feed the world it already does but the opportunity and the challenge at the same time is that whether the region can do it more in a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient way and that's the challenge and that's what we're going to be discussing today with our distinguished panels so thank you all Gracias por estar disponible por estar aquí con nosotros, gracias por venir a Paraguay, un placer estar aquí con ustedes. Entonces, vamos a empezar. Ahora, déjame cambiar a español. Rosario. He sido DUMPER como fundador.

You've been a long-term CEO and founder of DUMPER, one of the leading companies in Peru y un especial cliente de IDB Invest. ¿Cómo se ajusta a los cambios de los cambios de la demanda de los consumidores y cómo obtener valor? ¿Cómo obtener valor? ¿Cómo obtener valor, según esas dinámicas? Bueno, primero de todo, agradezco a Guillermo y también a la IDB por invitarme a participar de este evento muy importante. As President and CEO of DEMPR, I would like to thank the IDB for being a strategic partner, a longstanding partner, which has been supporting us in our sustainable growth efforts, which has been generating both economic development and social development simultaneously. We've been working together for over 10 years supporting all three sustainability vectors together, economic, social and environmental pillars. The company that I have the honor to manage is a leader not only when it comes to quality but also sustainability. Globally, we have become a protagonist when it comes to food security worldwide and that's porque estamos produciendo la producción de superfoods y también de frutos y vegetales. Estamos el principal productor y exportador de artichokes, por ejemplo, y eso es para el mercado de los mercados en los Estados Unidos y Europa. Lo interesante es que este crecimiento ha sido llevado a trabajar hand-in-hand con nuestros agricultores, providing them with technology and working with them on developing training programs. By doing this, we are contributing to the country's food security. As we know, in Latin America, small farmers or family-based agriculture is part of a subsistence agriculture system. As you said, Latin America and the Caribbean is the leading exporter of food worldwide. It covers more than one-third of the food deficit. But there's also a contradiction and paradox because our region feeds the world, and yet it does not have its own food security. Y eso es probablemente debido a la correlación entre la pobreza y la región, que está en alrededor de 32%, y la inseguridad de la inseguridad. Eso es compoundado por el impacto negativo de la crisis climática, que afecta la estabilidad de la chaine de la comida. Consequently, we need to consider geopolitical events, also the high rates of change in the markets in which we operate, also distortions when it comes to raw materials and logistics. And to boot, we're dealing with a global market that is constantly changing increasing in complexity, so our consumers have access to the global market and these clients can adjust where they purchase and also what they want to buy. They want healthy products that are residue free, that are also traceable and sustainable. So, given that, Peru has become a leading player at the global level. Ten years ago, we did not have a single kilogram of blueberries to export. And now we are the primary producer and exporter of blueberries around the world. Y ahora estamos haciendo la misma cosa con grapes y con otros vegetales y frutas. Por eso nuestro agro-food y agro-exporting sector ha sido instrumento para generar economic growth y social development simultáneamente. Y en ese contexto, la compañía que yo manejo es una de las principales exporters de comida en el mundo, y hemos trabajado en lograr vertical integración, y la idea behind eso es que se ha ampliado la participación en la válvula, y hacemos esto a través de nuestras empresas marketing companies in Europe and in the US. That is how we are capturing more value in the chain, which enables us to have a better understanding of what happens in the market and make adjustments and reduce our dependence on intermediaries and ensure quality from the field to store shelves and reduce the cost of the foods we produce. Given all of these challenges, the players in the global food chain not only have the challenge of finding ways to produce more, they need to produce more with fewer resources y también con un pequeño enfoque ambiental. Y también necesitas encontrar formas de ser más impactante en sus investimientos para que los rendimientos financieros sean atractivos y, al mismo tiempo, sean social impactos, sin dejarle ningún problema. Gracias, Rosario. Nosotros hemos sido compañeros próximos por muchos años y hemos sido parte del trabajo que has hecho, así que estamos muy orgullosos de lo que hemos hecho juntos.

James, tú llevas uno de los más grandes conglomerados en el Caribe, si no me equivoco, 13,000 empleados, en diferentes negocios. financial crisis in the food value chain you see them at the end of the value chain and then looking into how to look at the other parts of the value chain in the food system. From the Caribbean perspective and your regional and global reach, looking ahead five to ten years, what are the ¿Puedes mostrar que el cambio de las pandillas? ¿Puedes decir que el cambio de las pandillas no crees que los agentes de la pandemia ni cómo la gente está подготовiendo a la ciudadanía con los

IDB has been a great partner of us over the last couple of years, and it's my privilege to lead this 100-year-old company into, I think, a very exciting frontier. If I think about just three things, you mentioned some of them, right? So, climate. I think the climate conversation has to, while it continues to be an environmental conversation, has to be a cost-of-capital conversation as well, right? Porque cuando you think about the implications of climate in our region, so for example, this year we had a Cat 5 that hit Jamaica. It's tough to be the CEO and sit and watch this slowly go across there and worry about your people. And what it does mean is that as we think about infrastructure and our businesses, we have to build resilient systems, supply chains that can withstand this. So it's no longer, we have these shocks in the system. These shocks are going to come every year. So you have to build into that system where the capital has to come and the capital will price that resilience into the system. So climate is no longer just an environmental conversation. It has to be a capital conversation as well. And we will factor that into our cost of capital as we do business because we want to build resilient platforms. The second trend that is real and is very real right now is just what's going on with trade. And trade is just being reorganized, right? I don't think global trade is going down. I think it's being reorganized around predictability, reliability. Let me put it that way. And what that means for the Caribbean is I think there's a huge opportunity for us because individually our markets on their own can be subscale. When you connect them all together, they can be a powerful... And that's how Massey thinks of it. We, you know, two days ago on Monday, we opened probably the most advanced warehouse in the region, right, full of all the cool stuff, robotics and AI. But we're going to do that in Guyana as well. The intention is not to have two separate things. They're going to be connected to ensure that our supply chain, our logistics system is fully integrated, right. So the way we think you manage some of this changing dynamics around value world trade is if we connect the region, then the region becomes a predictable and reliable network. Investors like predictability and reliability. So that's point number two. Point number three in terms of trends, I think is the one I get excited about is technology. While it does bring some challenges, I think it brings a whole lot of opportunity. I think everyone on the panel spoke about traceability. I'll give an example, and for the people on my team who are here, I was in London at Whole Foods, bought a mango for my son for £10. A mango that when I grew up in Trinidad, I probably could pick up the back of the tree for free. All I could see is margin, right? So I say that to say that the technology that will allow us to create a logistic system, integrated logistic system a platform across the region that is reliable but transparent but also traceable and in markets like the Caribbean we may not have this scale to have huge volume but I think if you can trace that mango back to really pure soil whether that's in Trinidad or Guyana you can put a nice little barcode on that and a QR code and you can see the story behind that mango you can get premium, you can get margin so I think there's an opportunity in technology not just for operational supply chain efficiency but to leverage the opportunity around understanding the traceability of where these products are coming from and the one thing we do have in the region and you can see it in Guyana, you can see it in other markets is we do have pure soil and I think where we want to compete and this is where Masi is now positioning how do we compete to reduce the level of imports that come into the region so we feed ourselves but I would argue there's a huge opportunity around lower volume, high margin, high quality products that we export into the broader market through a connected logistics platform.

Excellent. I like the reference to integrating climate into a discussion about cost of capital y el valor de la integración, porque creo que es un punto valiente, no solo para el Caribe, pero para todos los regiones. Es sobre la integración. Y también el uso de la tecnología como un driver para lograr más margen, más resiliencia, más sostenibilidad. Déjame pasarme a Luis ahora. Luis, ustedes en Prolade.

Luis, en Prolade, ustedes están en una fase de crecimiento. Es una negociación muy resiliente. Es una comodidad que puede ser una comodidad difícil. Speaking a bit about the financial instruments and how you have financed your project in Mexico, if you could talk a bit about the project, because it's a very interesting one. In your view, what financial structures or mechanisms are necessary in order to realize a project like yours with commercial farming that is sustainable to do bankable carbon projects thank you well we are in the palm oil business we have about 5,000 hectares IDB's money is helping us expand to 6,000 irrigated Heck, there's palm oil, perhaps not in Latin America, but in many parts of the world. It's a bad word. So getting support for this type of business is quite an adventure. And I agree with you, James, on two things. The first is that traceability is key right now. I'm not supposed to say this. Just don't tell Nestle I said this. But Nestle is our main client. And the reason why they buy from us and why we have an almost $100 premium per ton on our product is because they know exactly where our date palm comes from. That's traceability. Second thing that James and I agree on is that we like colorful socks. And that's the good news. But going back to the financial structure, business like this one, the palm trees don't match in terms of private equity timing. They don't match up with the funds or with investors. There's only two ways of doing business in this industry. The one is to be fifth generation, as many people are in the palm oil business where they have been accumulating wealth for four or five generations, growing bit by bit by bit. If you want to hack the system, which means starting off with a relatively large company, you have to search for funds. The first layer has to be equity. There's no other way around it. The problem is that conventional funds don't match the timing of the harvest. So second, you need to find partners that can understand the business and that will hold. We had to do several rounds of private capital. Your first layer, however, has to be capital over a certain number of years. We added to that with a Mexican government agency, which is Fossil. They did put in venture capital, but it helped us from the equity standpoint. After that, what do you do? The next stage was blended finance. We did that with the IDB and with another bank. And that basically means it's a partner that understands the timing, understands that it's long-term, it's agriculture, Some things work out, sometimes they don't, but they understand that in the long run, they're going to get paid back. And that is a critical part of this. It's also important to have other sources of income. We're trying to do that through carbon bonds, using our biomass as a source of income. And that's worked out quite well. And then, lastly, you have to change the mindset around the business. You need to provide peace of mind to your partners. We do drone overflights every six months over all of our orchards, and we show our investors, our lenders. Why? To show them that the palm trees are still there. Literally, to show them that they actually exist. Because all kinds of things happen in this industry. So that provides certainty. Así que debes basar ese proyecto en traceabilidad y sustentabilidad. Y sustentabilidad es simplemente hacer las cosas bien. Así que creo que eso es todo. Necesitamos de varias leyes, y en el tiempo cambiamos las leyes. Vamos de equidad a la deuda, de finanzas combinadas, y luego después de varios años puedes volver a los colegios comerciales. Podemos conseguir eso, pero no estamos ahí todavía.

Gracias, Luis.

Gracias, Luis. Let me turn to Matt. Matt, you are leading a landmark project in Brazil about potash. Potash is a critical input for the global food system. And we have experienced recent geopolitical and supply chain disruptions across the fertilizers spectrum. Gracias por ver el video.

Latin America and Brazil specifically have really benefited, while others have been severely hurt by this. For example, historically, Brazil and the United States have been the number one and two exporters of agricultural goods to China, about US$80 billion a year, which is absolutely massive. But last year, there wasn't a single cargo of soybeans from the United States to China until October. All of that was displaced by Brazil. and as people are probably aware the Mercosur Agreement between several countries here in Latin America and the European Union is also recently signed it's going to cut import tariffs by about 90% on agricultural goods so this is likely going to mean even more supply coming out of Latin America but this is also exposed to big fragility in that we have such a high concentration of the key fertilizers that are used to grow food so when people talk about fertilizer There's three key elements. There's nitrogen, phosphate, and potash. All three of them do different things. All three of them are required in different quantities depending on what the soil chemistry is and what you're looking to grow. But the concentration of supply has really, really exposed us globally. I mean, potash, for example, what it does is it strengthens the stem of a plant to help it survive stress, and it also improves the firmness and the taste of several different foods. Es un minero crítico, y es actualmente formado por los océanos. Así que, como es lo que sounds, hay un cuerpo de agua que se ha quedado y se ha quedado en el agua de sal. Así que no hay muchos de estos basinos alrededor del mundo, pero donde ellos existen, ellos tendrán a ser muy larga. Así que ahora, tenemos un oligoplyo en el supply. Tenemos Canadá, Rusia y Belarús que supply 80% de nuestro potash, All while Brazil is the world's largest importer, 22% of a $30 billion a year market. Brazil imports 98% of its need when it potentially has the second biggest basin in the world sitting in its own backyard, which is absolutely crazy. And when you take that a little bit further, when you now look at the war in the Middle East, half of the world's potash today is coming from countries that are sanctioned or at war. Y eso ha ledido a massive volatilidad en el precio En los últimos 5 años, potash hit a low de $280 All the way up to $1,200 So for the farmers, this is very disruptive And it's unnecessary So in our case, we are looking to supply potash domestically in Brazil This is not only going to be important for Brazil's agricultural sector Which is about 23% of the country's GDP pero también va a ser importante globalmente porque Brasil es ya un mega exporter de agricultura de 165 billones a año, ha amongst the highest amounts de agua en el mundo y lo que es muy interesante es que Brasil can grow 2-3 crops a año, mientras que la resta del mundo can only grow one, pero es Achillez Heel, como todos los latinos de latinoamericanos, imports over 85% de sus fertilizadores cuando puede producir todo de eso domesticamente en su en su hogar, en su hogar, en su hogar, en su hogar, en su hogar, en su hogar, y en su hogar. Así que, por producir fertilizantes domésticamente, no solo ayuda a asegurar que los agricultores en Brasil tengan seguridad de la seguridad, pero también significa que, globalmente, tenemos un cuarto major supplier en un país no conflito que va a ser esencial para nuestra comida global.

Excelente. Let me turn to Rosario, now back to Rosario. Rosario, mencionabas todo el trabajo que habías hecho.

You mentioned all of the work done by Damper with small farmers, how you have included them in the international food supply chain. Can you give us some more details on how Damper achieves real impact at the community level? while at the same time generating financial returns. You mentioned social returns and financial returns. How does Damper work on that? In our case, having a model company in terms of quality and sustainability worldwide, That has meant that we can work with a focus on excellence to reach levels of competitiveness that are needed throughout the value chain while generating social impact. After 32 years, I am convinced that social impact is not compete with profitability, rather it's a complement to it. It maintains it in the long term. In other words, social impact and profitability are not only compatible, they are mutually indispensable. Most of our operations, if not all, take place in Peru. And Peru is thousands of kilometers away from its markets, the United States, Europe, Asia. So the big challenge is how do we make it so that our blueberries, our avocado, our grapes, our mangoes, asparagus, how do we make sure that they can travel 20, 30, 40 days to get to the European and Asian markets? We do that by having skilled human capital. Human capital that can understand market needs, which is why from the onset of our operations in 1994, we set up an innovative business model based on the concept of shared value, Focusing on being profitable and connecting that profitability to the well-being of our employees, the families, our community, and the environment. So we have four strategic pillars. One is education. How do we raise productivity among our employees? We bring educators to our operations so that those who have not finished high school can do that while they're working. Health, we look after our employees' health, especially women, because 50% of the 14,000 employees we have at Damper are women. And it's very important to invest in women because it's been proven that a very important element in reducing structural poverty in a country means the inclusion of women in formal labor markets. There's research that shows that 90% of a woman's economic income, an employee, goes directly toward food, health, and education for their children. so we have health, education, gender equity, empowering women is a third pillar and fourth is working with small farmers to promote resilient supply chains now it's one thing for me to say these four pillars have led to a significant impact in the quality of lives and people and the company and it's one thing to say that but it's another thing to be able to measure that so it's because of that a few years ago uh uh we went and knocked on the idb's door and we said we want to be able to measure whether our initiatives have a positive impact on uh employees quality of life on communities and on our own productivity. So we did that and through a study that measures multidimensional poverty, it's called the IPM, developed by Harvard and adopted by the United Nations. So we had very valuable support from the IDB on that index. It measures poverty for employees and their families and it doesn't just measure poverty in monetary terms in several dimensions health education living conditions social protection what that research has shown is that the multi-dimensional poverty index in damper is 28 percent ...compared to the multidimensional poverty index in our country in Peru, which is 42%. So, that's significantly lower than that. That shows that our initiatives definitely work and have a real, measurable impact on the quality of life of our people y la competitividad de nuestra compañía. Esta investigación también muestra algo muy importante, y es el hecho de que un empleo en nuestra compañía que ha terminado la segunda escuela, y esto es un parcería que tenemos con el gobierno, comparado con un empleo en nuestra compañía que no ha terminado la segunda escuela, That leads to a 48% reduction in the likelihood Of their family getting stuck in poverty So working with the IDB a few years ago We started working to get certification To raise our performance in terms of gender equity In order to build a safe equitable space within our company which promotes productivity innovation and competitiveness the salary gap in Peru is 27 percent in our company it's 2.5 percent so over these 32 years we've also been able to offer health services to our workers we have free clinics for obstetrics for expecting mothers expectant mothers pediatrics all of these resources correctly invested means our employees have a better education better health and they can flourish in an equitable environment over these 32 years our business has increased its sales 100 fold and our EBITDA over the last 10 years has grown 7 fold and all I can say is that when a company has a clear purpose when it's competitive it invests and it It generates a transformative return that's a financial return with real social impact. Thank you, Rosario.

Let me turn to James. From the Caribbean perspective and the regional perspective, even your reach, ¿Cómo can agribusiness can leverage digital tools, traceability systems, innovations in the value chain to try to capture more value, improve efficiency, and meet growing global demands and regional demands for more traceable products and better products at the consumer level.

Just to set it up, I think there's two things I'll say We are fortunate to live in a time where technology and digitization is going at a pace that, let's be clear, we can't wait for it. It's happening, right? So that's one. This is happening whether we want to get on board or not. That's the first thing. But I think the greater opportunity is it allows, to be blunt, smaller players to compete with the bigger players. If you look at what's going on with Generative AI, this is a huge opportunity for us in the region, for us in the Caribbean to that and last year, late last year we signed an agreement with OpenAI to bring a very enterprise chat GPT to all of our employees not specifically to get them over the fear of technology because this is the beginning of a path towards leveraging technology across the entire business so I say that to say that I think it's a very unique time for markets que tendrían a ser pequeños para competir big y competir big. Hay tres lugares donde hay real oportunidades. Uno es operacional visibilidad. Si miras en cómo estamos pensando en la tecnología de la capacidad de ver dónde está y operacionalizar, cut wastage, improve efficiency. I mencioné en el lugar que se opened. that warehouse will double the capacity that we have same amount of people not only that the people that are in there are learning new skills around AI robotics so the capability build is also great so there's a real example of how we can create operational efficiency and people development through the use of technology and doubling the capacity of a business that's one The second element is around traceability which we talked a lot about and that is becoming more and more an opportunity for premium margin products People want to know where this food came from and now we can actually with a barcode or just see where that food came from and charge a premium for that So once again it allows smaller markets like ourselves in the Caribbean to do something at a higher quality level, get a premium margin for it and then substantially fund food in the region. So let me explain that second part. What I didn't talk about in the first part is why we're excited about this agri-processing aspect or potential for Massey. The problem we have in the region is the cost of good food. And it's a health problem. So in Trinidad where we have oil and gas, por muchos años, nosotros básicamente subsidizamos el costo de combustible en el mercado porque podemos exportar el gas. Si reimagina eso en el contexto de organismo regenerativo o saludable, y se puede llegar a un nivel donde exportamos y obtenemos esa margen, nosotros literalmente podemos subsidizar la calidad de comida en nuestro mercado y hacerla conveniente y affordable. ¿Y lo que tenemos? We own the largest retail food business in the region. And that allows us to then, in an economical way, find an opportunity to move that quality food in. So that's a healthcare aspect to what we're doing. All of this can only be done through the technology that is now available to us at a fraction of what it would have been available to us 10 years ago. So our view, which is the beginning of, I think, la siguiente generación de nuestra estrategia y nuestra inversión es la tecnología, la fuerza y la fuerza, no solo la eficiencia, pero la oportunidad de realmente drive la transparencia, la herramienta de los capacidades, los que trabajan por nosotros, y la herramienta de que cambia la dinámica y la habilidad de nuestra región a competir internacionalmente. The last thing I will say, because we've been working through this in our region, is data and how we can turn data into a business. When you have the scale of Massey, you're sitting down on probably the largest data insight of consumers in the region. But I can extend that analysis to probably one of the more informative data insights of any complex markets. Y luego, ¿cómo do I leverage that data to do many things in terms of cut shrinkage, reduce spoilage in food, understand who's buying what and where they're buying, and it allows us to expand and compete internationally. So we honestly believe there's another element of technology, which is the data that we have available to us. How do we use that to monetize that? And once again, not just be efficient and productive in the region, but allow a relatively small company like Massey to compete in a global scale and to be faster, more agile to win in those markets.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, James. We're running out of time, but I will ask you to be brief, Luis. desde el momento de la conceptualización.

When you start designing or working on Prolade's model, and also now with its day-to-day operations, you've incorporated sustainability as part of the core of its operations. Could you tell us how you approach sustainability? What projects are you developing, ¿Cómo does sustainability weigh in on your day-to-day decision-making? We think of sustainability from day one. We are RCPO-certified. Our clients pay a premium for that. But we don't look at sustainability as a cost or as an obligation, but rather as a way to generate wealth for the company. Let me give you an example. Biocarbon. Seventy percent of what we harvest is biomass, it's waste, and this happens with sugarcane and other crops. And in the past, it was expensive to get rid of that. Now we're transforming into biocarbon. It stays in the soil. It regenerates the soil, reduces use of water, Hector enhances fertilizers. We use less phosphorus. And that is how we generate 15% more fruit per hectare. That doubles profits per hectare, and it's all in the name of sustainability. So, the challenge now is how to embed sustainability practices in the business in a way that it Impacts are EBITDA. Pure cost is not going to get you anywhere. Nobody wants to pay for sustainability. I've seen that after 15 years of work. So you have to do it on your own. But there are ways to do it. And I would invite all of you to look into this. Thank you, Luis. Matt.

What role can a company like Brazil Potash, the company that you are leading and the project that you are leading, ¿Qué rol can Brasil Potash play en strengthening el valor de la calidad? Y, ¿y, no, conecte agri-inputs con farmers, procesos, y markets? ¿Y, where do you see the biggest bottlenecks en la calidad de la calidad para lograr la integración que necesitamos?

One of the biggest issues in the value chain right now is just transportation time. Imported fertilizer into Latin America typically takes around 100 days between when it actually leaves the facility that's produced before it actually hits the farmer. It's particularly exasperated by port congestion. In Brazil, you have somewhere between 30 to 60 days of congestion in the ports in the south where vessels need to wait before they can actually dock. Y la razón es como un problema es porque el crédito en Brasil para las pequeñas familias que no pueden acceder internacionales es alrededor de 22%. Y eso es absolutamente crushing para las pequeñas familias. Las pequeñas familias, sí, pueden acceder internacionales, pero es still un total de falta. Y cuando hablamos de fragilidad, como mencioné antes, como las wars, las tarifas, It just further exasperates this issue. So by producing what I'll call in a selective globalization manner, so I'm not predicating that everything should be produced domestically. What I'm saying is that there's certain goods and services that are absolutely essential that when you can produce them domestically, you should. And by doing that, you really strengthen the supply chain because you cut out all these risks that you have with port strikes, rail strikes, wars happening in different countries by having that key commodity right in the backyard of where it's consumed. And we're seeing certain countries do this right now. We're seeing the United States step up, putting billions of dollars into critical minerals projects, building a vault of critical minerals. Canada's also not just talking, but putting billions of dollars into increasing the supply of products domestically. But a lot of the conversation today seems to be around things like rare earths and magnets that are important for different pieces of electronics. And I'd argue with people, ¿Qué más fundamental than ensuring our food?

Sí, excelente. Bueno, creo que estamos en el panel. Así que quiero agradecer a todos por la conversación que hemos tenido. Creo que hemos escuchado de diferentes partes de la valoración, de la valoración de la integración, de la valoración de la tecnología como un enabler para lograr la sostenibilidad y también los efectos de la clima y la clima resiliencia y cómo incorporar esos efectos en la decisión económica. Y también la idea de compartir valor. ¿Cómo podemos compartir valor? ¿Cómo podemos compartir valor? ¿Cómo podemos compartir social impact y compartir social impact con los retos económicos como un componente de la long-term sostenibilidad de la negociación? Gracias por estar disponible. y por su contribución hoy. Y gracias a todos.

Gracias a todos.