Donor conference provided "favorable loans"

Donor conference provided "favorable loans"

Blagojević spoke after the conference held in Brussels on Wednesday and mention a loan from the Japanese government as an example:

"The Japanese government has approved a particularly favorable 40-year repayment loan of EUR 40 million, with an interest rate of 0.01 percent and grace period of 10 years."

"This loan will be the first that the government will consider. The World Bank also approved a very favorable emergency loan of EUR 120 million for reconstruction that we can use immediately, because it means the money spent from our budget or other sources will be compensated later," Blagojević told the daily Politika.

He added that Serbia can also redirect existing loans from the World Bank "for roads that are already included in the existing indebtedness of the state, which means that the public debt would not be increased."

Blagojević said it was "good and commendable" for Serbia that the conference pledged nearly one billion euros - "about 200 million more than Bosnia received, although its damage was 200 million higher."

According to reports ahead of the donor conference on Wednesday, Serbia calculated the damage from the May disaster to be some EUR 1.5 billion, while Bosnia-Herzegovina reported its losses to be over EUR 2 billion.

Blagojević told the daily that of the EUR 995 million pledged to Serbia, 115 million are "pure donations" and the rest are soft loans from the EBRD, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Bank of the Council of Europe, and from Japan.

Of the EUR 115 million in donations, 80 million will come from EU pre-accession funds, specifically, EUR 30 million that was not spent in 2012 and 50 million allocated for this year.

Blagojević said that the EBRD, in an effort to help Serbia recover from the floods, expressed willingness to enhance and redirect the funds allocated to public and private sector in Serbia and confirmed that now up to EUR 300 million will be available for reconstruction in the public sector.

In addition, funds amounting to EUR 100 million for small and medium enterprises in Serbia will be available from a fund for development of municipal infrastructure and can be used in areas affected by the floods, he said.