February 27, 2009: Central and Eastern Europe Banks to Receive $31 Billion Rescue

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the World Bank pledge to invest €24.5 billion in countries such as Latvia and Hungary that have been hit by the global economic slump. In a joint statement, the three groups announce that the two-year joint initiative will include equity and debt financing, and access to credit and risk insurance aimed at encouraging lending, on top of the countries’ national government responses. The bailout is designed to “deploy rapid, large-scale and coordinated financial assistance… to support lending to the real economy through private banking groups, in particular to small-and medium-sized enterprises.… The response takes into account the different macroeconomic circumstances in, and financial pressures on countries in Eastern Europe, acknowledging the diversity of challenges stemming from the global financial retrenchment,” the groups add. The EBRD was founded in 1991 to assist the transition of former communist nations to market economies—investing across 30 countries including Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia. “The institutions are working together to find practical, efficient and timely solutions to the crisis in eastern Europe,” says EBRD President Thomas Mirow. [BBC, 2/27/2009]