April 2 (SeeNews) - Moldova’s second-largest city of Balti has bought eleven new trolleybuses using a 2.5 million euro ($2.9 million) loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and a 1.2 million euro grant from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P) fund.
The acquisition is part of EBRD Green Cities, an urban sustainability programme that is helping Balti develop an action plan to identify, prioritise and address environmental challenges, the EBRD said in a press release on Thursday.
Supplied by the Ukraine-based company Torhovyi Dim Litan, the new vehicles operate on electricity and use batteries, which allow them to circulate in remote areas without using overhead wires.
Between 2012 and 2014. During that period, Balti bought 23 trolleybuses, spare parts, power-supply infrastructure components and other equipment with a loan of 3 million euro from EBRD and a 1.6 million euro investment grant from the European Union.
The EBRD is one of the largest institutional investors in Moldova. To date, it has invested around 1.42 billion euro in more than 140 projects in the country.
The E5P is a 240 million euro multi-donor fund initiated by Sweden and operating in the whole Eastern Partnership region. The E5P Fund in Moldova totals 28 million euro and includes a 1 million euro contribution from Moldova.
In Moldova, the fund is supported by the European Union, the largest donor, as well as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Sweden, the fund’s initiator and largest bilateral donor.
($=0.8518 euro)