WASHINGTON, D.C. - On September 29, senior U.S. and Salvadoran officials continued discussions on an aggressive set of actions designed to increase economic growth in El Salvador. The discussions, which were carried out under the aegis of President Obama's Partnership for Growth (PFG) effort with El Salvador, included representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Departments of State, Justice, Treasury and Commerce, along with a Salvadoran delegation headed by Technical Secretary Dr. Alexander Segovia in Washington.

Since the August 7-11 visit to El Salvador of Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Jose Fernandez, both sides have been working closely to develop a set of activities and policies designed to overcome the two primary barriers to increased economic growth identified in the Constraints Analysis - security/crime and low productivity in the tradables sector. This package of joint commitments will be agreed upon in a forthcoming Joint Country Action Plan.

U.S. officials noted that El Salvador has made concrete advances to improve the conditions for investment and growth in the country, as witnessed by the passage last month of the port concession and the development bank law by the Salvadoran National Assembly.

"It's been excellent to see this partnership deepen over the last few months. It's a partnership based on intellectual rigor, shared analysis, and shared responsibility. Moving forward, it will be based on shared action," said Mark Lopes, Deputy Assistant Administrator of USAID.

Meanwhile, Technical Secretary Dr. Alexander Segovia remarked that, "El Salvador has presented our ideas and we have arrived at a common agreement on many of our points. This effort goes far beyond any monetary component. It's primarily about the shared responsibility of development."

The Partnership for Growth is an effort to put into practice President Obama's Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, and represents a departure from business-as-usual for both the United States and El Salvador. This effort recognizes the important role of policy reforms to support the private sector and civil society in increasing El Salvador's participation in the global economy.

PFG is not a new initiative focused on improving a single sector, but rather a comprehensive proposal aimed at accelerating and sustaining broad-based economic growth in a select group of countries. In addition to El Salvador, the United States is working with Ghana, Tanzania, and the Philippines on similar partnerships, with the aim of creating the next generation of emerging markets.