June 19 (SeeNews) - Infrastructure projects in Southeast Europe (SEE) are being delayed due to regulatory issues and poor project planning, the European Investment Bank (EIB) director of Central and Southeastern Europe said.
"The issue we have with infrastructure [projects] is delays due to regulatory issues, administrative issues or insufficient project preparation and this is our biggest hurdle," Falvia Palanza told SeeNews on the sidelines of the Southeast Europe Economic Forum in Sofia on Thursday.
Infrastructure and small and medium-sized enterprises are in the focus of EIB investments in the region.
Grossly, EIB investments in the region will remain at constant level in 2015, Palanza also said. "If we are speaking about Romania and Bulgaria, it is anywhere between 500 million and 1 billion euro," Palanza also said.
In 2014 EIB lending in Bulgaria totalled 610 million euro ($690 million). Loan signatures in Romania amounted to 590 million euro, Croatia loaned 535 million euro and financing for Slovenia was 111 million euro. The bank has been supporting actively the other, non-EU member states in the region as well.
($ =0.8839 euro)