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SLV | Dec 2, 2021

El Salvador boosting its digital economy

/ Our Today

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Building a tech park and Bitcoin city

El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele speaks at the closing party of the “Bitcoin Week” where he announced the plan to build the first ‘Bitcoin City’ in the world, in Teotepeque, El Salvador November 20, 2021. (File Photo: REUTERS/Jose Cabezas)

El Salvador is boosting its digital economy and is now laying the foundation for building a technology park and a Bitcoin City to advance that process.

Local real estate firm, Grupo Aristos reports that the tech park will be constructed on the outskirts of San Salvador and will have eight office buildings with a total floor space of 46,000 square metres. All the buildings in the park will be powered by a solar farm.

In addition, there will be recreational centres, bus stations, and playgrounds. Grupo Aristos says once completed, the tech park will house workstations for as many as 5,000 professionals.

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El Economista quoted José Escobar, president of Grupo Aristos, as saying, “we want to create a technological ecosystem that has never been seen before in the country, with corporate offices for BPOs, call centres, data centres, and software development firms”.

Meanwhile, a Costa Rican firm called Codisa has agreed to build a data centre nearby the park. Estimated to cost US$30 million, the data centre will carry Tier III certification from the Uptime Institute.

El Salvador has also begun constructing a Bitcoin City. However, it is not yet clear how the City will look and how it will promote the use of cryptocurrency in the country.

In September of this year, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, despite warnings from influencial players like the International Monetary Fund. The concept of this unique city is duly backed by Bitcoin, the world’s largest crypto player in terms of market capitalisation. 

The timeline of setting up this fabled city is still under the wraps. However, the reason why it is the talk of the crypto market is that Bitcoin city will simplify the concept of foreign investments by eliminating cross-border delinquencies and bottlenecks

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