EIB placed 873 million Euro in the Western Balkans in 2020

One of the EIB key goals in 2020 was to support the acceleration of the region's recovery from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the Bank's Vice President Ljiljana Pavlova said, adding the last year's EIB investments in new loans, grants and assistance were 50 percent higher than in 2019.

She recalled that the EIB, within the #TeamEurope strategy, announced a direct support package to the Western Balkans worth 1.7 billion Euros in May last year, saying that so far a little more than a billion Euro had been "mobilised" to mitigate the pandemic.

"The most was invested in credits for small and medium enterprises, followed by transport, digitalisation, environmental protection, as well as health and energy," Pavlova said.

She also announced that soon the EIB would continue to recover the economies from the pandemic's effects, focus on financing climate sustainability and environmental protection, and pay even more attention to small and medium-sized enterprises, urban development and regional cohesion.

Last year, the EIB invested 531 million Euro in the Western Balkans transport sector, rehabilitation of railways, road corridors X and Vc, and 100 million Euro was set aside to improve waterways along the Danube and Sava rivers.

The EIB said that thanks to the credit support of that institution, 20 hospitals in Serbia had been reconstructed, while works in clinical centres in Belgrade and Novi Sad are underway, and the reconstruction of the clinical centre in Kragujevac is also planned.

During 2020, the EIB also credited with 65 million Euros the modernisation of primary and secondary schools in Serbia, within the project 'Connected Schools' to introduce digital equipment and high-speed Internet connection.

"We will try to implement this exceptional project in other countries in the region as well," Pavlova said.