Press Releases 05
U.S. Ambassador Garza and U.S. Treasury Secretary Snow Announce Grant of $1.5 Million to Support Mexico’s Largest Savings & Credit Cooperative

Mexico City, December 15, 2005 -- “Mexico’s economy, and its future, depends on the strength of its small businesses. The United States is pleased to give this partnership grant that will go a long way towards supporting Mexican microenterprises and the deserving entrepreneurs who lead them,� said U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

Better access to high quality financial services for microenterprises and low-income households is a key element in the historic U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity, launched by President George Bush and President Vicente Fox in 2001. To support this important initiative, Ambassador Tony Garza and Secretary of the Treasury John Snow are pleased to announce that the United States will issue a grant of $1.5 million to the World Council of Credit Unions.

The World Council of Credit Unions’ experts enjoy a well-deserved reputation for marrying the modern financial system to small business entrepreneurs, who had previously been unable to enjoy the benefits of the greater business world. This organization’s experts have worked in partnership with the Caja Popular Mexicana to strengthen Mexico’s largest savings and credit cooperative and one of Latin America’s premier microentrepreneur and low-income household development organizations. Thanks to their advice, the Caja Popular Mexicana has brought an additional 500,000 Mexicans into the country’s financial system, and expanded affordable remittance services to 82,000 members during the first eight months of the year 2005 alone. Caja Popular Mexicana now provides financial services to more than one million Mexicans.

The $1.5 million grant announced today by Ambassador Garza and Treasury Secretary Snow will strengthen the partnership between the World Council of Credit Unions and the Caja Popular Mexicana. The United States will continue to work with this organization and with other well managed small-business cooperatives, by helping them improve their products and services, including microenterprise loans, debit cards, and an expansion of products and services to new clients in rural Mexico.


http://mexico.usembassy.gov/mexico/sp05 ... _snow.html