Salvadorian president-elect begins meeting with int'l financial bodies

Funes told media in San Salvador that the meeting would be used to define "counter-cyclical measures which must be put in place as soon as possible to face the crisis," according to website El Salvador.com. He also said he may separately seek additional lending from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. El Salvador's exports have been falling at a rate of 11.7 percent and imports of intermediate goods have been falling at 25.7 percent due to the current world economic slowdown. A big chunk of El Salvador's exporters are operators of so-called maquilas, the factories that import intermediate goods and export finished goods, mostly to the United States. Counter-cyclical measures are those designed to compensate for the ups and downs of the economic cycle, spending in times of economic slowdown and suspending when the economy is dynamic. IADB official Maraa Carmenza Mclean said that the bank is keeping credit lines to El Salvador open and plans to disburse 300million U.S. dollars to the nation in June. The Bank has a program worth 500 million dollars with El Salvador and paid out 200 million dollars at the start of the year, Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.chinaview.cn for full version.