Serbia plans to use two donor conference loans

Serbia plans to use two donor conference loans

BELGRADE -- Out of EUR 889 million offered to Serbia in the form of loans during a recent donor conference in Brussels, the country intends to use two, a daily writes.

According to the Belgrade-based newspaper Danas, the two loans are worth EUR 267 million and will be used to repair the damage from the catastrophic May flooding.

The Office for Reconstruction told the daily that "for now" work was being done to apply for the "extremely affordable Japanese loan" and another offered by the World Bank.

Japan has offered a 40-year, EUR 40 million loan with a grace period of 10 years and 0.01 percent interest rate.

The World Bank loan for reconstruction totals EUR 227 million but the terms have not been released yet.

Most of the EUR 106 million worth of donations came from the EU, to the total value of EUR 80 million, while Switzerland donated EUR 5.9 million, Japan EUR 5 million, Norway EUR 4.1 million, while Austria, Sweden and the U.S. donated EUR 2 million each.

The donor conference for Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina was organized on July 16 by the EU, France and Slovenia at the initiative of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić and gathered 35 countries and seven institutions. Serbia received donations worth EUR 1 million from France, EUR 1.25 million from Britain, and EUR 150,000 from Slovenia.

The EU data show that some of the countries that took part in the conference did not make financial donations or offer loans because most of them, including Russia and Germany, sent equipment, funds or manpower to the flooded areas before the conference.

According to rough assessments, the damage caused by the May floods...