(Communicated by the President’s Spokesperson)
President Reuven Rivlin today (Monday, 12 March 2018) met at his residence with President of the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who was visiting Israel.
Sir Suma thanked the President for the meeting and said, “When we met around three years ago, you encouraged us to expand our operations in the region, and I think that we have been most successful in taking your advice. We have expanded more and more the areas in which we are working together with Israeli investment.”
The President was then presented by Sir Suma’s staff, with a review of the organization’s work in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, and of the hidden challenges and opportunities in the region.
The President welcomed Sir Suma, and congratulated him on his arrival to the region. He stressed to him that the expansion of cooperation between Israel and the EBRD in the region was mutual a goal and said, “There is great potential, and creative ways must be found to couple the experience the Bank has gained in the region, with Israeli technology.”
The President added that he was pleased to hear of the growing representation of Israeli experts in the EBRD, and stressed that, “This is a further step in strengthening our work in the fields of international aid and development”. Of note, six Israeli experts had been selected to work at the EBRD, part of a government plan to strengthen Israeli involvement in the Bank.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was established in the early 1990's and is owned by 65 countries, with the main shareholders being the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, while the State of Israel is among the Bank's founding countries. It is a development bank which invests in infrastructure projects in order to promote the economies of the countries in which it invests. The visit of the Bank’s president is part of a regional visit to Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Beirut.