BRUSSELS, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The European Investment Bank Group (EIB), the world's largest multilateral financial institution, lent 84.5 billion euros (about 92 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, EIB president Werner Hoyer said here on Thursday.
Of this amount, the EIB Group - the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund - provided 7.5 billion euros of new financing for the Investment Plan for Europe, also known as the "Juncker Plan".
"We have also launched the European Investment Advisory Hub, the second pillar of the plan. Now Europe also needs to make its regulation more investment-friendly, including by removing regulatory barriers and completing the internal market. This is the third element of the Investment Plan for Europe, and the plan cannot succeed without it," Hoyer said at a press conference.
Meanwhile, in 2015 the EIB Group agreed to lend 18.7 billion euros for innovation, a record level of support for innovation investment, the group said in a statement.
"Europe needs to invest in innovation, innovation and more innovation, and that has been the EIB Group's focus," the president said.
Support by the EIB Group to improve access to finance by small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) last year included both 29.2 billion euros of lending through local partner banks and the largest-ever annual engagement by the European Investment Fund, the EIB Group's specialist provider of risk finance for SMEs across Europe.
Additionally, the EIB put about 19 billion euros toward strategic infrastructure, that backed the construction or upgrading of new or existing hospitals, schools, universities, social housing complexes, ports, roads and railways, as well as essential investment in water, energy and communications infrastructure, according to the statement.
The EIB Group claims to be the largest multilateral provider of climate finance in the world. Last year, EIB's climate-related lending accounted for 26.5 percent of the bank's total financing, in excess of the EIB's commitment to ensure at least a quarter of its financing goes to climate action projects.
"Climate change is the main global challenge of our time. Over the next five years, we will provide almost 100 billion euros for climate action across the world," said Hoyer.
"On top of this, we decided to increase lending for climate action projects to 35 percent of the loans we make in the most vulnerable countries by 2020," he added.
As well as climate finance, the group provided 7.8 billion euros of lending outside Europe in 2015. The EU Enlargement and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries represented the largest beneficiary region outside the EU, with loans totalling 2.7 billion euros. The Eastern neighbourhood countries received 1.5 billion euros of EIB finance in 2015 and the Mediterranean countries, 1.4 billion euros, with 2.2 billion been given out abroad.
The president said the EIB group would maintain a similar level of financing in the coming year. "The need for our lending and expertise will grow still more in the year ahead. We recognize the responsibility that comes with this role," he pledged.
