WB Vice President: WB ready to increase annual investment for Ukraine to $1bln
2012-10-17 10:22:45
The World Bank is ready to increase the provision of financial resources to Ukraine up to USD 1 billion annually, Philippe Le Houerou, Vice President for the World Bank's Europe and Central Asia region, said at a meeting with Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development and Trade Petro Poroshenko in Tokyo.
"The vice president of the World Bank expressed readiness to increase the provision of the Bank's resources to Ukraine to USD 1 billion annually, taking into account Ukraine's readiness to continue to retain the existing cost-effectiveness," the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to Houerou, today Ukraine has considerably improved the quality of the investment project portfolio of the World Bank and provides a record level of application of the Bank's funds as compared to previous years.
During the meeting, an agreement was reached on the implementation in 2012 of new priority projects, namely: further reconstruction of the highway M-03 on the section Lubny - Poltava; further improvement of the system of public statistics; modernization of municipal heating supplies; development of urban infrastructure and the beginning of the second project on electricity transmission.
The World Bank vice president also added that the finance institution is interested in supporting and developing Ukraine's agro-industrial sector. According to him, Ukraine has sufficient resources to play a key role in ensuring food security worldwide.
Also, the sides discussed the possibility of raising additional resources of the World Bank to implement projects on improving the competitiveness of Ukrainian companies and came to an agreement regarding Ukraine's available capacity to improve investment attractiveness of the country.
Speaking about the cooperation between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the sides noted that the country's successful development of cooperation with the World Bank is a good basis for continuing a constructive dialogue with the IMF.
At the moment, the World Bank is implementing 12 investment projects in Ukraine worth USD 1.72 billion.