Eco-Industrial Parks:
EU and IFC sign the 1st of a series of EU Economic and Investment Plan
Firstly, on 6 October 2020, the European Commission adopted the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans (EIP), with the aim of boosting economic growth and development, supporting green and digital transition, and promoting regional integration among the Western Balkan countries. In short, the EIP aims at mobilizing up to EUR 9 billion from the Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance III (IPA) package for the period 2021-2027 and attracting additional investments worth EUR 20 billion.
On 19 December 2022, Katarína Mathernová, Deputy Director-General at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations and chair of the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), and Alfonso Garcia Mora, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Vice President for Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, signed the Eco-Industrial Parks project, the first IFC led project implemented through WBIF.
The WBIF is a joint initiative of the EU, financial organizations, bilateral donors, and beneficiaries, aimed at enhancing the development of the region and contributing to the European perspective of the Western Balkans. Since its inception in 2009, the WBIF has allocated over EUR 1.4 billion in grants to strategic infrastructure projects with an estimated total cost of more than EUR 22 billion.
The Eco-Industrial Parks project aims to help advance de-carbonization and improve resource efficiency of industrial parks across the Western Balkans. The parties have agreed that the Western Balkan region has tremendous potential to accelerate economic growth and to ultimately improve people’s lives. In addition, other projects in the pipeline seek to mobilize guaranteed financial instruments for creditworthy agribusiness clients, enabling much needed sector modernization, digital transformation and helping improve climate related capacity of financial intermediaries, thus allowing them to expand their outreach to micro, small, and medium enterprises.