 Odile Renaud-Basso will visit Bosnia and Herzegovina from 31 January to 1 February and Serbia on 2-3 February. This will be her first in-person visit to both countries since taking up her post. .){kind=link}
President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Odile Renaud-Basso will visit Bosnia and Herzegovina from 31 January to 1 February and Serbia on 2-3 February. This will be her first in-person visit to both countries since taking up her post. .
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, President Renaud-Basso will meet with representatives of the new authorities, as well as the financial sector, private businesses and foreign investors, to discuss reform, further EBRD investment and policy engagement as Bosnia and Herzegovina embarks on the next steps of its European Union candidacy. She will also visit sections of the pan-European road, Corridor Vc, and ride a new trolleybus to see the improvements made to public transport services in Sarajevo, which were financed under the flagship EBRD Green Cities Programme.
In 2022, the EBRD signed a total of €120 million of new investment in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The last two years, in particular, saw record levels of funding, worth €424 million, to accelerate the implementation of ongoing projects. Overall, the EBRD has committed €3 billion to Bosnia and Herzegovina since it started operating there in 1996.
In Serbia, the EBRD President will meet with the authorities, local partner banks and key private-sector clients. She will visit the two landmark public-private partnership projects financed by EBRD: the Nikola Tesla Airport modernisation and the solid waste management facility at Vinca. She will also meet a group of start-ups at the ICT Hub Belgrade, a co-working centre focusing on tech innovation.
In 2022, the EBRD invested €648 million in Serbia in a record 33 projects and mobilised an additional €127 million of co-financing from other sources. This included support for large foreign direct investment projects, fast-growing local companies (such as IT solutions provider HTEC), small and medium-sized enterprises via credit lines to local partner banks, and financing for transport and environmental infrastructure and energy efficiency in buildings.
The Bank’s total commitments in Serbia amount to €8 billion since 2001.
Across the Western Balkans, the EBRD invested €1.29 billion in 2022, one of the Bank’s highest annual totals to date.