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CEI Trust Fund at EBRD Commits More than €1.3 Million in Core Operations in 2010

In 2010, the Italian Government, through the CEI Trust Fund at the EBRD, has committed €1,075,500 towards seven Technical Cooperation (TC) assignments. The distribution of the projects follows the CEI priorities: geographically, three projects have regional outreach, while the others specifically target Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. The project distribution by sectors shows an emphasis on infrastructure (two projects in transport and two projects in energy) and SMEs and general development (one and two projects, respectively).

During this year of economic recovery, the CEI Trust Fund at the EBRD has also committed €285,800 towards nine Know-how Exchange Programme (KEP) projects amounting to a total value of about €737,800 and covering all KEP areas of intervention. The beneficiary countries are Albania, Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, and Serbia. Two projects have a regional dimension, one involving all non-EU CEI Member States, the other targeting all Western Balkan countries.

In 2011, consistent with CEI and EBRD priorities, the CEI Trust Fund at the EBRD will continue to support the following sectors: energy efficiency, municipal and environmental infrastructure, transport, agribusiness, SME development and financial institutions and power and energy. Moreover, through the KEP, the Fund will continue to support European integration, capacity building and market economy mechanisms. Project selection in 2011 will also aim to respond to criteria of equal distribution of interventions among CEI non-EU countries, in order to enable them to equally benefit from CEI Trust Fund projects. Regional projects will remain a priority, in line with the CEI regional approach.

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Technical Cooperation (TC) is traditionally offered in the form of grant-type assistance with the specific aim to facilitate the EBRD projects and their subsequent development and implementation. Specifically, TC operations include support for feasibility and pre-feasibility studies, sector and environmental engineering, management training, capacity building, and pre-loan audit. Since its inception, the CEI Trust Fund at the EBRD has provided about € 19 million for funding Technical Cooperation (TC) projects.
Launched in 2004, the CEI Know-how Exchange Programme (KEP) is an instrument dedicated to offering co-financing to projects and programmes focused on the transfer of know-how and best practices from EU to non-EU member states of the CEI. Since then, the interest in KEP has steadily increased: 45 projects were approved and implemented under KEP between in the period 2004 - 2010 for a total CEI (Trust Fund) committed contribution of more than €1.1 million. The total value of KEP projects supported by the Trust Fund so far has reached more than €3.2 million.

 For more information: dovier@cei-es.org
 

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