The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union's financing institution, is providing ECU 150 million(1) for the development of the mobile telecommunications network in Poland. The loan to the Polish telecommunications company Centertel, which was set up in 1991, will help finance the installation of a third digital mobile network in the eleven biggest agglomerations in the country with a total population of 15 million.

Commenting on the loan, EIB Vice-President Wolfgang Roth said: 'expanding the Polish telecommunications services is crucial for economic development in the country and its integration into the European Union. The EIB, as the major provider of funds for transport and energy infrastructure in the central European countries, is also playing a key role for developing efficient telecommunications networks (TENs) in the region, including links with the networks of the European Union.'

The loan for the third digital network brings total EIB lending in Poland since 1990 to ECU 2.5 billion. Previous EIB financing mainly went to the modernisation and expansion of the gas, telecommunications, railway and motorway networks, to urban transport and other municipal infrastructure investments in Katowice and Krakow, to a country-wide reforestation scheme, to the repair and strengthening of various infrastructure damaged during the 1997 floods in southern Poland, to a new diesel engine plant in Silesia, and to a new air separation and liquefaction plant in Upper Silesia. The EIB is also assisting the development of small and medium-size enterprises through its global loans (credit lines) to a number of Polish and EU banks in Poland.

Since it started lending in Central and Eastern Europe in 1990, the EIB has provided nearly 8.4 billion ECU for projects in the region, and more specifically in Poland (2.5 billion), the Czech Republic (1.8 billion), Hungary (1.2 billion), Romania (1 052 million), Slovakia (665 million), Bulgaria (471 million), Slovenia (325 million), Lithuania (148 million), Estonia (88 million), Albania (68 million), FYR of Macedonia (70 million) and Latvia (61 million).


(1) Conversion rates used by the EIB for statistical purposes during the current quarter are those obtaining on 30/09/1998, when 1 ECU = 1.96 DEM, 0.69GBP, 1.17159 USD, 4.19135 PLN.