The European Investment Bank (EIB) put over 1 billion euros in Ukraine in 2020 — 50% more than in 2019, representatives of the bank said at a press briefing on Feb. 3. This brings the bank’s total investment in Ukraine since 2007 to 7.5 billion euros.
2020 was a record year for the EIB in Ukraine, according to the bank’s vice-president Teresa Czerwinska.
“We delivered a record investment of over 1 billion euros in Ukraine in 2020, focusing our operations on support for conflict-affected regions of eastern Ukraine,” she said.
The EIB invested in infrastructure rehabilitation, improvements in public transport and key public services such as education and the postal service. It loaned 340 million euros to war-affected regions in eastern Ukraine to restore social infrastructure, improve public utilities and repair damaged administrative buildings. The bank evaluates that this money will help 13.7 million people living in the war-torn Donbas.
The EIB also invested 100 million euros to modernize 183 kilometers of roads in Luhansk Oblast and channeled 200 million euros into improving public transport in Ukraine overall; 30 million euros was spent on Ukraine’s national postal service Ukrposhta to expand its infrastructure with up to three sorting hubs and 20 new depots; and 300 million euros was spent on improving the energy efficiency of roughly 1,000 public-owned buildings, including schools, cultural centers, kindergartens and hospitals.
The bank also invested 50 million euros to develop of Unit.City, an innovation park in Kyiv that belongs to tycoon Vasyl Khmelnytsky.
The EIB estimates that it helped sustain around 18,500 jobs in Ukraine by helping 75 small and medium-sized enterprises survive the coronavirus crisis. It also made 75 million euros available to Ukrainian banks to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis, agreeing to repurpose 50 million euros to help Ukraine purchase COVID-19 vaccines.
Ukraine has been one of the main recipients of the EIB loans over the past years, representing over half of the European bank’s lending in Eastern Europe.
The bank plans to continue pouring money into Ukraine in 2021. Overall, the EIB plans to sign over 7.7 billion euros worth of projects in 2021 for activities outside the European Union, including in Ukraine, but the bank hasn’t specified where it will invest the money yet.
