Dank u wel, mijnheer de minister.
Mesdames et Messieurs, Dames en herren,
C’est avec grand plaisir que je signe ce prêt de 100 millions d’euros à CHIREC au nom de la BEI aujourd’hui.
De EIB helpt met de financiering van infrastructuur in de landen die er aandeelhouder van zijn, en ik ben blij dat deze lening een belangrijke bijdrage zal leveren aan de bouw van dit prioritaire project.
An international metropolis like Brussels needs modern infrastructure. It needs modern healthcare and state-of-the-art, energy-efficient hospitals. The project we are contributing to will bring many benefits to the citizens of Brussels and beyond - through economies of scale, through greater comfort and shorter patient stays – as well as to the environment.
Belgium is renowned for the quality of its healthcare and I’m glad the EIB has contributed so much, both by way of financing hospital construction in Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia and corporate lending to the health sector – so much so that it has become part of our core business here.
The EIB has been very active in the Brussels Region over the past decade, for the benefit of its citizens, and we intend to step up our involvement in the years to come – also thanks to new possibilities for our Bank stemming from some important recent developments.
You will have heard that the EIB is getting a 10-billion-euro increase in paid-in capital from its shareholders, the EU Member States. This increase is crucial for the Bank to protect its financial strength after the extraordinary contribution it has provided to the real economy since the outset of the crisis four years ago.
This way, the EIB will be able to continue to act in a countercyclical way, to invest the cash it raises on capital markets in support of growth and employment across our Union, to maintain a direct and positive impact on the daily lives of our fellow citizens.
The 10 billion euro in new capital should allow us to increase our investment volume over the coming three years to some 200 billion euro – 200 billion that will go to the real economy by financing projects that will foster growth and employment.
There are two major advantages to our involvement in a project: financial value added with favourable interest rates and long loan maturities, as well as non-financial value added such as technical and financial advice. And when one assesses the impact of our contribution, one needs to bear in mind that EIB loans also generally unlock some two to three times more money from other sources.
And I can assure you that Belgium will receive its fair share of EIB financing.
In 2013 we aim to lend up to 1.4 billion euro in the country. Our activity will revolve around four priority areas which we think can best kick-start growth – innovation and skills, strategic infrastructure, resource efficiency and access to finance for SMEs, whereby our local partner banks pass on the financial benefit of EIB involvement by reducing the interest rates to their SME customers.
Further opportunities may emerge in the areas of hospital investment, in the education sector and in social housing, where the EIB is already an established investor.
And, last but not least, with the A11, Belgium may also possibly see one of the first pilot phase projects for the project bond initiative, which is designed to attract long-term institutional finance from the capital markets for infrastructure investment.