Follow us on:   

World Bank to give $40mn firefighting loan to Russia
May 8, 2013, 1:21 pm

[Xinhua]

Trees burn at a forest near Orekhovo-Zuyevo village, Russia [Xinhua]

Russia will take out a $40 million loan from the World Bank to prevent forest fires.

The loan is part of a $121.26 million Forest Fire Response Project in Russia being co-financed by the Russian government and aims to “improve forest fire prevention and suppression in select forest ecosystems, including targeted protected areas.”

The project stipulates strengthening the forestry management in such ‘pilot’ regions as Moscow and Voronezh regions, Khabarovsk Krai, Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Komi Republic .

The resolution posted on the government’s website instructs the natural resources ministry  “to sign an agreement with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Russia’s behalf’, stipulating the provision of a $40 million loan to Russia with a maturity of 18 years and a five-year grace period.

The project supports strategic partnership directions, defined by the Russia-World Bank agreement for 2012-2016, including economic diversification and increasing the global and regional role of Russia.

In the past decade Russia has experienced numerous summer fire disasters.

In the summer of 2010 several hundred wildfires broke out across Western and Central Russia due to record-high temperatures and drought.

The fires cost the state roughly $15 billion in damages.

Daria Chernyshova