Brussels, 22/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - On 25-26 October in Amsterdam the European Investment Bank will be organising a meeting of high level experts under the chairmanship of the Dutch presidency. The meeting will seek to analyse the way FEMIP (Euro-Mediterranean Investment Partnership), an EIB managed financial instrument works and what it is aiming to achieve. The meeting is part of FEMIP's annual Ministerial Committee preparations, which will bring together finance ministers from Member States and Mediterranean partnership countries in Morocco in June 2005. The previous ministerial session took place in Alexandria in June 2004.
The EIB will be stressing the importance of FEMIP at the meeting, as a significant financial instrument for financial and economic cooperation between the EU and Mediterranean countries. Launched in 2002, FEMIP receives funding of EUR 8-10 bn and is used to support the private sector (particularly SMEs and direct investment from abroad) and promote improved investment opportunities (infrastructure, health and education). These efforts, underline the EIB, have been made with the aim of setting up a Euro-Mediterranean free-trade zone by 2010. several well-known figures are expected at this event: EIB president Philippe Maystadt, president of the Ecofin Council, Gerrit Zalm, Michael Camdessus, former IMF Managing Director and experts from the European Commission, Member States and partner countries.