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EBRD expands commitment to municipal sector in Poland
€21.7 million to relieve traffic congestion, reduce pollution
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is investing €21.7 million in two Polish municipalities to help relieve traffic congestion, reduce pollution and create a more efficient waste-water collection service. The loans are part of the Bank's strategy to spread investments in municipalities throughout Poland.
A €16.7 million loan to Przedsiebiorstwo Wodociagow i Kanalizacji (PWiK), a water supply and sewer company in Rybnik, in southern Poland, will help create a more efficient waste-water collection service, relieve public health hazards and reduce pollution in local rivers. The loan, which comes with a partial guarantee from the city of Rybnik, will be used to extend PWiK's sewer network by more than 600 km, connecting about one-third of the city's inhabitants to a new waste-water treatment plant. The loan will also help to clean up the region's environment by removing direct effluent discharges into local rivers and by reducing the number of septic tanks in the region.
Thomas Maier, Director of Municipal and Environmental Infrastructure at the EBRD, said the Bank's loan will not only help PWiK substantially reduce the amount of untreated effluent entering the tributaries of the Odra River, and eventually the Baltic Sea, but also bring Rybnik's sewerage collection in line with EU environmental standards.
This also marks the EBRD's first environmental loan in Upper Silesia, which is one of the most extensively industrialised and polluted regions of central Europe. The European Union, through its ISPA Programme has approved Rybnik's application for complementary grant financing of approximately €71 million to cofinance the project.
A €5 million loan to the city of Sopot will help relieve traffic congestion and reduce pollution by financing new traffic-activated signalling and the construction of a pedestrian passageway beneath the busy Niepodleglosci Avenue, connecting the urban centres of Gdansk and Gdynia. It will be a direct municipal loan, without sovereign or commercial-bank guarantees. Additional funding from the EU's PHARE facility was used to help prepare the project.
Mr Maier said the loans highlight the EBRD's growing involvement in financing municipal infrastructure in Poland, where the Bank has already loaned around €170 million. He said the loans may act as a launch pad to develop similar projects in other central European municipalities. The EBRD is working closely with the Polish authorities to find ways to support smaller cities which often find it more difficult to attract commercial loans or grants. "It is important for Poland and for its accession to the European Union that its smaller municipalities catch up quickly with the major urban centres, he said."
Earlier this year, the EBRD signed a €12 million loan with the city of Gdansk to improve the city's public transportation by helping to refurbish trams, rehabilitate key sections of tram track and introduce electronic ticketing.
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