02 December 2016, Friday, 16:27 82

Ukraine, German State Bank KfW Sign Agreement On EUR 55 Million Loan And EUR 20 Million Loan

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has signed an agreement with the German state bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) on a EUR 55 million privileged credit and a EUR 20 million grant to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons Heorhii Tuka announced this in an interview with the Fakty newspaper, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"We have recently signed an agreement in Berlin (Germany) with the German Bank KfW: EUR 55 million of privileged credit for infrastructure facilities under 2% of annual interest for 30 years with a ten-year grace period and a EUR 20 million grant for solving the housing problems of internally displaced persons," he said.

Tuka noted it was the first positive experience of funding by western partners of projects of aid to internally displaced persons and reconstruction of Donbas.

He says there are international donor organizations and volunteers willing to help with financing.

The deputy minister noted that Pavlo Zhebrivskyi, the head of the Donetsk regional military-civil administration, had said that USD 20 billion was needed to restore the territory of Donetsk region freed from militants.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in August 2016, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oleksandr Danyliuk and German Ambassador Ernst Wolfgang Reichel discussed the issues of allocation of loans to Ukraine by KfW (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau, Reconstruction Credit Institute; Germany).

Ukraine and Germany discussed the possibly of launching a project of cheap housing loans for internally displaced persons (IDPs) for a total of EUR 52 million.

KfW is a state-owned German bank in which the German federal government owns an 80% stake and federal states of Germany own 20%.