The European Investment Bank is lending EUR 225 million for modernisation of university and technical college infrastructure in Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
The loan will help to upgrade higher education facilities. The expectation is that modern research establishments will encourage businesses to cluster around them as partners and cooperate to transform research results into products and production processes, thereby contributing to the dissemination of new technologies, boosting economic activity and creating new jobs.
With this loan the EIB is supporting the European Union's goal of promoting research and innovation to secure a place for Europe at the forefront of international technological competition.
Mecklenburg Vorpommern has seven higher education institutions, including the oldest universities in the Baltic area and Northern Europe, Rostock and Greifswald. Currently it has some 28 000 students enrolled in higher education. In terms of per capita expenditure on science and research, Mecklenburg Vorpommern ranks among the top third of Federal German Länder with a figure of EUR 220.
During the contract signing ceremony, EIB Vice-President Wolfgang Roth highlighted the fact that the loan's favourable terms will deliver significant interest savings for Mecklenburg Vorpommern, thereby making room for further capital investment.
Based in Luxembourg, the European Investment Bank is the European Union's financing institution. It funds infrastructural development and modernisation projects plus capital investment by European businesses designed to sharpen their international competitive edge. Aggregate annual EIB lending is running at some EUR 37 billion (2001), with Germany taking around EUR 6 billion and half of this in turn going to the new Federal Länder. Since 1990, EIB financing for projects in Mecklenburg Vorpommern has totalled some EUR 1.1 billion.