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EBRD long-term water loan to cut pollution of Volga River
Bank lends 350 million Roubles for City of Kazan water projects
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has lent 350 million
roubles (equivalent of €10 million) to reduce the flow of untreated sewerage
discharged into the Volga River by Kazan, the capital of the Republic of
Tatarstan and Russia’s seventh biggest city with a population of 1.1 million.
The 10-year loan to Kazan Vodokanal, the city’s wholly-owned water and
wastewater management utility, will finance the rehabilitation of Kazan’s main
wastewater treatment plant.
This project will significantly decrease the level of untreated sewerage being
discharged and thus contribute to a long-term reduction of the pollution load
of the Volga River and the Caspian Basin, said EBRD President Jean Lemierre at
a signing ceremony in Kazan on the sidelines of the Bank’s 16th Annual General
Meeting.
This is the EBRD’s first municipal loan to a Tatarstan borrower and we are
very glad that Kazan joins a growing line of Russian cities taking advantage
of the EBRD's Rouble financing, specially designed to free municipalities and
other Russian entities with no access to export revenues, Mr. Lemierre added.
The project will also help modernise Kazan’s municipal water supply and
address the problem of water losses.
The governments of The Netherlands, Canada and Finland, as well as the
European Union, are contributing significant donor funds to finance various
aspects of the project’s preparation and implementation.
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