Brussels, 21/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 20 June, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Republic of Hungary signed a memorandum of understanding on the EU strategy for the Danube region. EIB lending will be focused on three main priority areas of the strategy - mobility and intermodality, water quality, and energy. In the follow-up, EIB President Philippe Maystadt and Hungarian Minister of National Economy György Matolcsy signed four priority funding projects which will also benefit from EU aid. The total amount of loans is worth €735 million.
A loan of €300 million will co-finance priority investments within the transport, energy and environment operational programmes. The objective in the transport sector is to improve accessibility with a view to increasing economic competitiveness and strengthening social and territorial cohesion improving Hungary's main roads and railways infrastructure with the focus on environmentally friendly and sustainable modes of transport.
Another loan of €300 million will contribute to sustainable rural development, renewable energy, climate change, biodiversity protection and soil management. The beneficiary sectors will be small-scale agro tourism and conservation of rural heritage through co-financing of small scale, particularly private sector projects, in the area of enterprises and communities in rural, agricultural and tourism infrastructure areas in all the regions of the country.
A loan of € 80 million will focus on projects in the road sector improving regional accessibility by upgrading the load-bearing capacity of connecting roads to the trans-European transport network. It will also finance construction of by-passes around cities presently crossed by national roads with a high load of long-distance transit traffic.
Finally, a loan of €55 million will support in all regions of Hungary the development of regional outpatient specialist care centres, the preparation of the institutional system of in-patient specialist care for structural change and IT development activities in the healthcare system. (O.L./transl.fl)