MOSCOW, 2 November (BelTA) – Soft financing of industrial projects in the EAEU will be available primarily to aircraft industry, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, machine tool building, and mechanical engineering, official representative of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Iya Malkina told a briefing for the press answering a question from a BelTA correspondent whether specific companies and projects, if any, are already considered for soft financing.
Iya Malkina recalled that for the first time since the Eurasian Economic Commission was established ten years ago the heads of government of the EAEU countries reconciled approaches to the sources and mechanism of soft financing of cooperation projects in industry using the EAEU budgetary funds. The decision was taken at the recent meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Yerevan. “Thanks to this tool, the most promising multilateral projects in the EAEU will receive loans with subsidized interest rates from international and national financial organizations of the union,” she explained. “The participants of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting agreed on the main criteria to select projects that can apply for soft financing. These criteria include the participation of three and more parties in the project, creation of added value in the value chain, financial efficiency and sustainability, the growth in mutual trade and investment. However, it is too early to talk about specific projects,” Iya Malkina added.
“A number of industries heavily rely on imports. It is important to focus on strategically important industries, first and foremost, such as aircraft industry, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, machine tool building, and mechanical engineering,” the EEC representative emphasized.
“We still have a lot of work to do to develop the legal framework for a new system of financing. In addition to that, most of the cooperation projects in the EAEU are bilateral. This also applies to the Republic of Belarus. Thus, we have to compile a list of cooperation projects under the new soft financing mechanism taking into account the criteria approved by the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council,” Iya Malkina noted.
“We will actively communicate with the business community of our countries, as well as chambers of commerce and industry of the member states and other partners,” the EEC official representative added.
