UKRAINE: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development has signed an agreement repurposing €50m of a previously-agreed infrastructure enhancement loan to provide urgent liquidity to enable national railway Ukrzaliznytsia to keep essential services running following the Russian invasion.
EBRD originally agreed to lend €150m to for upgrading and electrification of the Dolynska – Mykolaiv – Kolosivka line, but this has yet to be disbursed.
The repurposing agreement was signed in a virtual ceremony on June 10 by EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso, Ukraine’s Minister of Finance Sergii Marchenko and CEO of Ukrzaliznytsya Oleksandr Kamyshin.
Renaud-Basso said the financing would ’support the movement of goods and people, including displaced persons, and help maintain Ukraine’s trade links with the outside world’.
Marchenko said ‘since the first days of the war, the personnel of Ukrzaliznytysa has demonstrated heroism, transferring our citizens to safer regions of Ukraine and ensuring the humanitarian security of Ukraine, and we are enormously grateful to them. Today’s agreement will help ensure adequate financing of Ukrzaliznytsya’s needs.’
Kamyshin said the first steps were being taken for a ‘Marshall Plan of rebuilding Ukraine’, and the €50m would help Ukrzaliznytysa cope with the significant damage that the invasion has caused.
‘We must focus not only on the resilience of our work but also on the recovery of the country’s economy’, he said. ‘We continue to provide solutions to increase freight traffic and we have to provide opportunities for Ukrainians to return home. This loan is critical for the maintenance of our stable liquidity. I am grateful to international institutions for continuous support and hope that we will soon be able to demonstrate real and effective results of our partnership.’
