Financiera Familiar is a small, locally-owned financial company in a country whose financial sector is relatively underdeveloped and is dominated by international banks. This medium-term loan to Financiera Familiar will be onlent to between ten and fifteen small and medium-size companies in Paraguay in amounts ranging from $70,000 to $100,000 and will specifically target the country’s agribusiness sector, which is one of the most dynamic sectors in the country and which drives Paraguayan exports. Through this operation, the IIC is supporting a financial intermediation process. This loan will help financial institutions obtain medium-term funding that will benefit small and medium-size companies in need of such funding to finance their longer-term needs, such as equipment purchases and permanent working capital, and to introduce modern environmental and labor management practices. The loan will also help the IIC meet goals of its own: triple lending to micro, small, and medium-size companies in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2007 as spelled out in the Declaration of Nuevo León, and, under its new small bank program, expand access to appropriate sources of funding by financial institutions that finance small and medium-size enterprises.