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Eleven countries join new EBRD-led initiative for Western Balkans
€10 million donor finance to target key projects; help boost private sector
Eleven countries today agreed to provide a total €10 million in donor funds
towards a new EBRD-driven initiative to boost private business investment and
infrastructure development in the Western Balkan countries – Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro, including Kosovo.
The Western Balkans Multi-Donor Fund will enable the Bank to use donor funds
to identify and prepare key projects that are vital to economic growth and
regional cooperation. Across a range of sectors, the Fund will aim at
narrowing the transition gap that has emerged between the Western Balkans and
neighbouring countries. The donor countries committed to supporting this
initiative are Austria, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Other countries are
expected to join soon, increasing the fund’s capital.
EBRD President, Jean Lemierre, speaking at a donor conference just ahead of
the Bank’s Annual Meeting in London, said key priorities in this region are
growth in private sector investment and employment, and improved access to
basic services such as clean water, reliable energy and transport. We are very
grateful to the donor countries in supporting this initiative, because their
finance acts as a catalyst for the EBRD’s investments, which benefit the
people of the region, he said. The Bank has a pipeline of around €800 million
of new investments under consideration over the next two years for the Western
Balkans.
The fund builds on a similar EBRD initiative – the Early Transition Countries
initiative – established in 2004 to encourage economic growth through private
sector development in some of the Bank’s least developed countries, mainly in
the Caucasus and central Asia. To date donor funds alone have helped generate
nearly 100 EBRD projects under this ETC programme.
Gerrit Zalm, Minister of Finance for the Netherlands, and Chairman of the EBRD
Board of Governors, said the benefits of combining donor financing with EBRD
projects have been witnessed across the Bank’s countries of operations, and
play an important role in promoting development and reducing poverty. By
marrying donor financing with EBRD expertise, we hope to help the Western
Balkan countries develop further. This is why The Netherlands was amongst the
very first countries to commit grant resources to the Fund, he added.
Leander Treppel, Representative of the Federal Ministry of Finance of Austria,
which currently chairs the EU seat, said the new initiative for the Western
Balkans will benefit the peoples of the region, and is receiving full support
from Austria under its Presidency of the European Union.
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