Azernews.Az

The European Development and Investment Fund for Eastern Europe (EDIFEE) has announced it will allocate a budget of 470 million euros for investment in the environmental and energy sector of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The decision was approved at the Fund board meeting early in June. The funds will be invested in eligible environmental and energy projects under the requested criteria through a duration of 36 months.

The fund announced the decision was followed by the major success in its initiatives in the Republic of Moldova.

EDIFEE has provided with financial support in structuring the financing of 11 waste management and treatment facilities which are a part of ECOVERDE® national waste management project in Moldova, with the supervision of the Ministry of Construction and Regional Development of the country.

ECOVERDE® Moldova investment is estimated at a total of 370 million euros, with first implementation and construction stages to start in the following months. The project is done in collaboration with Mentor Group Holdings Consortium.

The fund`s projects eligibility criteria are mostly to invest in economically low risk feasible projects with a decent capability to encourage implementation of EU environmental standards and a positive social impact (such as job creations).

For its investments in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the fund is focused on infrastructure projects (such as waste management, water treatment systems, etc.) and also in renewable energy projects (such as Solar (PV), Wind, Biomass).

Allocating a sufficient investment for Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan was done after careful analysis of those countries` needs in environmental and energy investments. Those investments will create better infrastructure and services for large parts of the population in these countries along with a low risk investment for the fund itself. Beside the large volumes of the investment capacity, EDIFEE considers it as well as a very good investment due to the successful financial structuring of ECOVERDE® waste management projects in Moldova.

The fund is addressing private entrepreneurs and governmental agencies to apply with early stage projects in the energy, infrastructure and environment sector to be included under the fund coverage.

The investments will be allocated for private, public or PPP (public private partnership) project frames, which respects the eligible criteria that are published on the fund`s website.