OREANDA-NEWS. On September 22, 2008 A delegation of the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD has completed a week-long mission to Russia during which they visited two Russian regions and held talks with regional authorities, as well as business leaders and representatives of civil society, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

The mission is part of a regular series of consultations aimed at enabling the EBRD Directors to obtain up to date information on developments in what is the Bank’s largest country of operation.

The Directors stressed the strong commitment of the EBRD to the regions of Russia where 90 percent of the Bank’s funding is already directed and reiterated the Bank's readiness to continue supporting the rapid development of the NorthWest Region and St. Petersburg, as well as that of the Sverdlovsk region and Yekaterinburg.

Representatives of the Board on this visit included:

Kurt Bayer, representing Austria, Israel, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Terence Brown, representing the European Investment Bank (EIB)

Tae Hwan Kim, representing Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Egypt

Vassili Lelakis, representing the European Community

Etsuro Honda, representing Japan

Igor Podoliev, Director for Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia

Jan Willem van den Wall Bake, representing the Netherlands and Mongolia

Elena Kotova, representing the host nation, the Russian Federation, as well as Belarus and Tajikistan

The EBRD Board mission began with a visit to Yekaterinburg and the surrounding region and the directors later flew to St. Petersburg for a further series of meetings and visits to EBRD projects in the city and the surrounding region.

The Directors stressed the strong commitment of the EBRD to the regions of Russia where 90 percent of the Bank’s funding is already directed and reiterated the Bank's readiness to continue supporting the rapid development of the NorthWest Region and St. Petersburg, as well as that of the Sverdlovsk region and Yekaterinburg.

Since the EBRD was founded in 1991, it has committed over EUR11 billion to Russia, including projects worth EUR2.3 billion signed in 2007.