The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) on Tuesday signed an agreement with Argentina to provide a loan for the country's satellite program, Argentina's Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said. Taiana said that the IADB would lend Argentina 50 million U.S. dollars to expand the country's satellite system, which includes launching two new orbiters in 2010 and 2011.
The total satellite program would cost 200 million dollars, and the Italian government would also lend 50 million, Taiana said.
The satellites will carry a microwave radar system that has the ability to survey humidity and geology up to two meters below the surface of the earth, which will help the country to monitor agriculture, fishing, natural disasters, Antarctic ice, and urban infrastructure.
Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner and the IADB's President Luis Alberto Moreno have recently signed loan agreements worth more than a billion dollars.
On Monday, Moreno agreed to lend 580 million dollars to help install an electrical transmission line in the north of the country.
Another 230-million-dollar loan will help the country invest in Buenos Aires' social projects, and a fourth 180-million-dollar loan will help similar projects in Cordoba.
