The EBRD has made a decision to issue a sovereign loan to the Republic of Turkey, to increase the coutry's capacity to fight with COVD-19 pandemic.
The statement from EBRD notes that the funds will be used to finance the purchase of ventilators and ICU monitors, and other emergency medical equipment urgently needed in public hospitals to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. The project will be subject to the EBRD's standard approval procedures and accordingly, the structure, size and/or use of proceeds may be subject to change. Any financing by the Bank will be subject to formal approval, inter alia, by the Bank's management and Board of Directors, negotiation and execution of appropriate financing documentation and fulfilment of applicable conditions precedent.
Project Objectives
The project aims to support the Government of Turkey in uplifting its healthcare emergency response in public hospitals across the country and to help the emergency response efforts against the Covid-19 crisis. The loan proceeds will be used to equip Turkey's existing and new public hospitals built to provide adequate and timely healthcare services to the pandemic patients.
The project supplements the ICU bed capacity in the country, including in Istanbul pandemic hospital in Yesilkoy. This pandemic hospital along with other Covid-19 hospitals will remain in service for possible future waves of Covid-19 cases, as well as other emergencies related to earthquakes, risk of which is particularly high in the country and requires ample sector capacity.
The project reduces the funding gap of the government's emergency health programme and is complementary to other loans provided by IFIs in the country to fight the pandemic.
Currently Turkey has over 154,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the number of recoverd patients is 116,111 and the number of deaths is over 4000.
