Luxembourg, 09/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - FEMIP committee experts (Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership Facility) met up on 7 March in Luxembourg. The president of the Council Nicolas Schmit attended the meeting, which elaborated a series of recommendations to submit to ministers of the economy and finance from the EuroMed area on 20 June in Morocco.
The Experts' committee is encouraging partners to update their “regulatory framework and monitoring mechanism for the financial sector (including the capital markets) and to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the banking system. It walso wants to see greater emphasis on product diversification as a means of supporting the private sector and developing local capital markets. According to the EIB, modernisations of the financial and banking markets represents a unique occasion for partner countries to speed up their compliance with the standards of the internal EU market and facilitate investment flows to the region.
In 2004, FEMIP lent a record EUR 2.2 bn to partner countries. Non-reimbursable aid provided through the Technical Assistance Fund totalled EUR 13.8 million. The Trust Fund, annexed to FEMIP and which is expected to be increased through direct loans for the different countries has so far got 14 Member States supporting the initiative which provide a total amount of EUR 30 million.