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media advisory
friends of the earth international
CEDHA
BankTrack
13 april 2006
ING BANK DUMPS DIVISIVE 1.7 BILLION PAPER
MILL PROJECT
Amsterdam (The Netherlands), 13 April,
2006 – Dutch banking giant ING announced in a
letter to Friends of the Earth International,
CEDHA and BankTrack that it is pulling out of
a divisive venture opposed by
environmentalists and local communities in
Uruguay and Argentina.
The ING Group wrote in an April 12 letter
that its participation in the 1.7 billion USD
controversial paper mill project of Finnish
company Botnia in Uruguay “is no longer under
consideration”.
The ING Group had an advisory role to the
company and was to arrange a USD 480 million
loan package from private banks for the
project. The paper mill has been strongly
criticized in Uruguay and Argentina for its
severe negative environmental impacts.
Botnia has already started to build a
paper mill on the Uruguay river, at the
border with Argentina. The project will have
strong environmental impacts as it will
pollute air and water and contribute to the
increase in damaging monoculture
plantations.
The project has led to hot protests in
both countries. Activists built roadblocks on
bridges across the river linking the two
countries. The project also brought relations
between the governments of Argentina and
Uruguay to a breaking point, with both
governments indicating that they want to
bring the case to the International Court of
Justice in the Hague for violation of an
international treaty governing the Uruguay
river.
Friends of the Earth International, Center
for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA, from
Argentina) and BankTrack told ING that they
were going to inform the ING shareholders
meeting on April 25, 2006 about the negative
impacts of the project.
Just two weeks before the ING shareholders
meeting, ING informed the three organizations
in an April 12 letter that “ING's advisory
and coordinating role has been concluded …
and further participation in the process –
whereby funds would be made available to the
project – is no longer under
consideration”.
According to Daniel Taillant from CEDHA,
“This decision is another serious blow for
Botnia. Recently the International Finance
Corporation, the private arm of the World
Bank, announced that it would postpone
consideration of loans to the paper mill
project until new identified shortcomings of
the environmental and social impact studies
could be addressed”.
“We are pleased to see that ING has
decided not to finance this controversial
project. The paper mill constitutes a clear
violation of the Equator Principles for
private investments which ING signed on to,”
according to Paul de Clerck of Friends of the
Earth International.
"The paper mill is exactly the sort of
project that should not pass the Equator
Principles test. At a time when major banks
debate a revision of the Equator Principles
it is a very welcome signal that ING took its
social and environmental responsibilities
seriously" said Johan Frijns, coordinator of
BankTrack.
For more information contact:
Jorge Daniel Taillant, CEDHA, Ph: + 54 9
351 625 3290, E-mail:
jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar
Paul de Clerck, FoE International, Ph: +
32 2 5426107, E-mail:
paul@milieudefensie.nl
Johan Frijns, BankTrack, Ph: + 31 6
12421667, E-mail:
coord@banktrack.org
See also
www.cedha.org.ar
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