UKRAINE: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development is providing national railway UZ with a loan of up to US$62·5m to finance the purchase of general-purpose wagons under its rolling stock renewal programme.
A similar loan was provided by EBRD in 2009. The bank says it has now committed more than US$400m to the Ukrainian rail sector through five separate transactions since 1999.
Announcing the latest loan on December 11, EBRD said its projects with UZ and private operators were supporting wide-ranging reforms. These include plans to separate infrastructure from operations, divest non-core activities, review tariff policy and reduce cross-subsidy between freight and passenger operations, as well as opening the rail sector to private investment and promoting competition.
