OREANDA-NEWS. On May 06, 2008 Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner and representatives of the EU member states and the ENP countries will officially open work of the Neighborhood Investment Facility( NIF), and its geography of work will be extended to the states that signed the ENP Action Plans, Ukraine including.

As the European Commission Representation in Ukraine sources informed, the NIF is the key instrument of the Europen Neighborhood Policy, that is mobilizing additional means for financing the projects of the infrastructure development (primarily in the power engineering, transport and a sphere of environmental protection) on the whole ENP area.

The instrument will render a grant support to loans of state and international European financial institutions. The European Commission plans to allocate EUR 700 million (for the period from 2007 to 2013), of which it allocated EUR 100 million.

It is expected that due to that mechanism the EU neighbor countries will be able to receive credits totaling to EUR 5-6 billion.