In a year heavily marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, the EIB Group confirmed its strong support to the Polish economy, providing €5.2 billion of overall financing to the country’s public and private sectors. Volumes delivered in 2020 were largely in line with the trend of the previous years, a sign that the country responded swiftly to the pandemic and continued to invest in the future despite the forced downturn.

Loans granted by the European Investment Bank (EIB) amounted to €4.6 billion, while the European Investment Fund (EIF) provided €660 million in guarantees and equity investments to small and medium-sized businesses and mid-caps. In absolute terms, Poland was the fifth-biggest recipient of EIB Group financing among the 27 EU Member States after Italy, France, Spain, and Germany.

This overall financing represents around 1 percent of Poland’s GDP, making the country the first recipient of EIB Group financing on a “per GDP basis” among the 15 largest EU economies.

 “If anything can be learned from the past year, it is that emergency action can and must be accompanied by investments in the future. It is indeed significant that in 2020 the EIB Group not only maintained a high level of support to the Polish economy, but it also managed to invest around one-third of its funds into Covid-19 related response initiatives and around 40% into climate action and environmental sustainability. We scaled up our green financing and we will continue to do so this year while helping the public and private sectors to cope with the pandemic. A green recovery and support for innovation are two goals shared by Poland and the EIB,” said EIB Vice-President Teresa Czerwińska, who is in charge of operations in Poland.

(WBJ)