EBRD President Odile-Renaud Basso
- EBRD President to visit Poland 17-18 April
- Meetings with the Prime Minister, government and the National Bank
- The EBRD will continue to focus on green transition, capital markets and private sector in Poland
The EBRD President, Odile Renaud-Basso, is to visit Poland on 17-18 April 2023 to discuss the Bank’s continuing investment in the country. EBRD investment in Poland reached a record level of €990 million last year, of which 80 per cent was in the green economy, including renewable energy.
She will meet the Prime Minister, government ministers and National Bank representatives to discuss further EBRD investment, with a focus on low-carbon transition, capital markets and cross-border logistics, and support for Poland’s key role in the reconstruction of Ukraine. President Renaud-Basso will be joined by Vice President for Banking Alain Pilloux, who will hold meetings with the private sector, and by EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik.
Odile Renaud-Basso said: “Poland became our fourth-largest market last year thanks to the record investment of nearly €1 billion. So far in 2023, the EBRD has already invested €300 million in the financial sector and the real economy, including the expansion of an EV battery-recycling facility. We will continue to focus on Polish corporates affected by the war on Ukraine and to facilitate cross-border investments, support Poland’s decarbonisation and energy security and play an anchoring role in capital markets to build up economic resilience in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
Nearly all EBRD investment in Poland is in the private sector, and 80 per cent of last year’s total investment was allocated to green economy or low-carbon transition projects, including a new cargo terminal at the port of Gdansk and the equivalent of €170 million for Cyfrowy Polsat’s expansion into the renewable energy sector (via the first sustainability-linked bond issue by a corporate in the country). Other renewables projects received more than €100 million. New funding for Elemental’s e-waste recycling facility has brought total EBRD commitments in the electric vehicle value chain in Poland to €500 million since 2019. The EBRD also works with Polish municipalities under the Green Cities programme and will soon begin rolling out EU guarantees via InvestEU for innovative green projects.
Together with the Ministry of Finance, the EBRD has supported the development and implementation of the Poland’s capital market strategy. The Bank has also helped the Warsaw Stock Exchange develop guidelines on environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting for listed companies.
In 2019, in a new cooperation model, the Polish government provided €1.5 million for technical cooperation grants under a joint EBRD-Poland Special Fund. The grants enabled the preparation of green economy projects across Poland worth around €2 billion, for which the EBRD provided about €750 million of financing, including for energy efficiency in buildings and for the extension of the Warsaw metro.
Part of the increased EBRD investment in Poland since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has served to support the financial sector during times of significant volatility.
To date, the EBRD has invested more than €12.6 billion in Poland.
