EIB ANNOUNCES FUNDING PROJECTS FOR UCD AND ESB - A team from the European Investment Bank is in town to announce that it is co-funding redevelopments at UCD and various projects with the ESB. The EIB will also meet AIB and Bank of Ireland about funding small businesses.
The vice president of the European Investment Bank, Plutarchos Sakellaris, says one of the bank's main policies is to make Europe smarter and to promote the knowledge economy. He recalls that the bank made a significant investment in Trinity College Dublin some years ago. The EIB is giving UCD a loan of €90m to renovate its campus in Belfield in Dublin which Mr Sakellaris says will make it more competitive in order to attract more students and more researchers. He says the knowledge economy is a big job for the whole of Europe, and the area has a long way to go to secure the future of sustainable production. He says Ireland has come a long way on that road and has a good set of goals. Financing for these projects, from the likes of the EIB, will be very useful.
The bank is also giving the ESB a loan of €235m for a number of projects, including a project to help bring the electricity generated on the wind farms in the west to the areas of big demand in the east of the country and the building of a new distribution network of charge stations for electric cars around the country. Mr Sakellaris says the European Investment Bank is also working with AIB and Bank of Ireland on deals to increase lending to small and medium sized businesses. He says that investments in a country's economy will counterbalance the effects of austerity measures.
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MORNING BRIEFS - The head for Europe at the International Monetary Fund has resigned with immediate effect. He is Antonio Borges, and he said that personal reasons were behind the move. His resignation comes at a crucial time in the efforts to tackle Europe's debt crisis and it seems that his attitude to the crisis caught up with him. Earlier this year he suggested that the Fund might help Italy and Spain by buying up their debts, but he later had to take back those comments. He is Portuguese and a former vice-chairman at Goldman Sachs in London. Before joining the IMF he was also chairman of the Hedge Funds Standards Board.
*** Fitch Ratings warned that it may reduce its "stable" rating outlook for US banks with large capital markets businesses because of contagion from problems in troubled European markets. The agency said that unless the euro zone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad outlook for US banks will darken, adding that the risks of a negative shock are rising. The warning was aimed at the entire US banking sector but sent the shares of Goldman Sachs down 4.2% and took 8% off the market value of Morgan Stanley last night.
*** The Dublin Neurological Institute at Dublin's Mater Hospital has announced that drug firm Elan is providing €1.5m over the next five years to boost the Maters' patients access neurological care in the areas of MS, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is trading at $1.35 cents and 85.7 pence sterling.
