- EBRD ‘more in demand than ever,’ President says
- Odile Renaud-Basso speaks at Bank’s 2023 Annual Meeting in Samarkand
- Highlights Uzbekistan’s success as an investment destination
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and its strengths are more relevant to its regions and the crises they face than ever before, its President said today.
Speaking at the Bank’s 2023 Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Samarkand, Odile Renaud-Basso cited its record business volume last year, response to the war on Ukraine and major green energy investments in Uzbekistan as evidence of its increasing impact.
“Across our regions the EBRD is…..now more in demand – and more important – than ever before,” she said.
Its strengths included: “our long experience, our local knowledge, our unique mandate and our trademark focus on the private sector and policy reform”.
The world is living through an age of alarming geopolitical tension and was dealing with the challenges of the war, energy and food crises and high levels of inflation, she said.
The EBRD invested a record €13.1 billion across its regions last year and deployed €1.7 billion, plus €200 million mobilised from partner banks, in Ukraine.
The Bank also invested a record €6.4 billion in the green economy and, in her speech, Ms Renaud-Basso highlighted the scale of some of its recent renewable energy projects in Uzbekistan.
They include two wind plants in Bukhara which will generate one gigawatt of power between them, the largest single renewable energy project the EBRD has financed to date, and three solar plants which will produce another 900 megawatts.
The EBRD has invested over €3 billion in the last 6 years in Uzbekistan, including €839 million in 2022 alone, and the country has been the Bank’s largest market in Central Asia by business volume for the last three years.
“Greater momentum on reforms to open up the economy, develop the private sector and accelerate the green transition will, of course, attract even more foreign investment,” the EBRD President said.
Later in the Annual Meeting the Bank’s Governors will be discussing ways of boosting its support for Ukraine – and all its other regions – as well as debating a possible limited and incremental expansion of the EBRD’s operations to sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq.
“With the support of you, our shareholders, we want to ensure that the Bank is fully equipped for the mission ahead and thus to deliver maximum value for you and maximum benefit for all our regions,” Ms Renaud-Basso said.
“We must support them. It is our duty to do everything we can to do so.”
