The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Ukrainian government have signed three loan agreements totaling EUR 640 million to implement priority infrastructure and transport projects.

The EIB is one of the key partners of Ukraine, with which the country has been cooperating since 2007, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine said on its website on Wednesday.

"Today, three loan agreements have been concluded with the bank, according to which Ukraine will receive EUR 640 million for improving infrastructure in the eastern region, updating the road network of Luhansk region, as well as purchasing electric public transport in almost 20 Ukrainian cities. I am grateful to our permanent partners from the EIB for all-round cooperation and assistance to Ukraine. Keep working," Minister of Infrastructure Vladyslav Krykliy commented on the signing of the agreements.

Of the amount indicated by the minister, EUR 340 million will be used to restore and improve key social and transport infrastructure in the eastern region.

"These are schools, kindergartens, hospitals, post offices, street lighting, sewerage systems, as well as public transport and the corresponding infrastructure for it. As a result, such changes will benefit about 14 million Ukrainians living in these territories," the ministry said.

Another EUR 100 million loan will be provided by the EIB for the restoration of the road network of Luhansk region, namely for the implementation of repair work on two sections of the P-66 highway checkpoint Demyno-Oleksandrivka-Svatove-Lysychansk-Luhansk within the framework of the project "Eastern Ukraine: reunification, restoration and revival"(project 3B).

In addition, EUR 200 million from the EIB will go to the implementation of the Urban Public Transport of Ukraine II project, which provides for the purchase of exclusively electric public transport: trams, trolleybuses, electric buses, metro cars, as well as the construction and renovation of tram and trolleybus lines, replacement of traction substations.

"Eighteen cities participating in the project have already been preliminarily identified: Severodonetsk, Vinnytsia, Uzhgorod, Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Melitopol, Kamyanske, Khmelntsky, Ternopil, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Lutsk, Zaporizhia, Lviv, Poltava, Odesa and Chernivtsi," the ministry noted.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is a long-term lending organization owned by the member states of the European Union. The EIB provides financing for reliable and sustainable investment projects that contribute to the achievement of EU policy objectives. Among the Eastern Partnership countries, Ukraine is the main recipient country of the EIB, accounting for approximately 50% of its lending activities. The EIB now has a portfolio of loans and guarantees totaling EUR 6.83 billion for Ukraine.