Mubasher: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) financed 395 projects in 2018, with a total of EUR 9.5 billion ($10.83 billion), in the 38 emerging economies in which it invests across three continents.
Despite economic headwinds in a number of countries, the EBRD maintained an excellent level of investment and support for reforms last year.
The amount invested came very close to the record of EUR 9.7 billion seen in 2017.
EBRD’s investment in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region continued at a strong level.
Financing for Egypt included funding to lower extreme pollution levels for a six million population residing in the Kitchener Drain area of the Nile Delta.
The lender made its first investment in Lebanon, including the takeover of a stake in Bank Audi, the largest in the country.
The European bank also started operating in the West Bank and Gaza, funding small businesses, and contributing to the capacity building at the Palestinian Monetary Authority.
In Turkey, where an economic downturn and a currency crisis affected many private sector firms, third of EBRD’s EUR 1 billion funding was directed to the Turkish lira (TRY) or in support of domestic capital market development.
Moreover, the lender’s green financing and lending reached 36% of total investment last year, placing the bank on course for meeting a target of allocating a 40% of investments to the green economy.
The bank expanded the size of its Green Cities programme four times to step up environmentally friendly municipal investments to nearly EUR 1 billion.
EBRD also introduced a new energy strategy, in which it vowed to ramp up investment in renewables, completely omit financing for coal projects, and limit funding for upstream oil to exceptional projects.
During the annual meeting in Jordan last May, shareholders urged the bank to utilise further existing capital to boost investments in existing countries, in order to attain the international community’s sustainable development goals by 2030.
In response, the EBRD introduced a plan, in which it would raise the quality and quantity of its investments during the upcoming two years.
For this year, the bank set ambitious goals to boost the global development agenda, with climate finance a major component.
