The president of the EBRD said the bank would support the banking and energy sectors in the Baltics (Photo courtesy of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
The EBRD said the money, which will be invested through 2010, will go to the banking and energy industries in the three countries.
"We speak about equity where needed, but we also speak about subordinated loans, we speak about credit lines for small and medium-sized enterprises," EBRD President Thomas Mirow told journalists in Vilnius.
The bank has recently approved a financial package for Parex Bank, the second largest bank in Latvia. The 22 million euro package would give the EBRD a 25 percent stake in Parex. The Latvian state currently owns about 85 percent of the banks shares after having to bail it out earlier this year.
The EBRD has also recently aquired a 16 percent stake in Lithuania's Siauliu Bankas.
"We would be happy to further engage, indeed, in other banks in these countries; we would like to support the activities in the energy and energy efficiency field," Mirow said.
The development bank was set up in 1991 to help Europe's former communist nations evolve into free-market economies. It teamed up in February with the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to provide up to 24.5 billion euros over two years in loans and investment to crisis-stricken Eastern Europe.
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