LONDON, May 2 (Xinhua) -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will unveil plans to ensure that growing prosperity is shared more fairly across the societies where it invests, the bank president Suma Chakrabarti said on Tuesday.
The EBRD will launch its first Economic Inclusion Strategy during the Cyprus conference May 9-11, where it will also report to shareholders on robust operational and financial results, Chakrabarti told a press conference at the development bank's London headquarters.
The EBRD already seeks, through its investments and its support for policy reform, the greater economic integration of three core groups that regularly remain on the margins of economic progress: women, the young and people living in remote areas.
Under the new strategy, the EBRD will explore opportunities to widen its response to inclusion to encompass other groups such as an aging workforce, people with disabilities, and refugees.
The EBRD had a year of record investment and a 25 percent increase in net profits in 2016 to 1 billion euros (1.09 billion U.S. dollars), a trend that has continued into the first quarter of this year, Chakrabarti said.
"For the first quarter of this year we are doing very well, with the profitability target having already been met for the year," Chakrabarti said at the press briefing.
"The EBRD has had for two years running extremely good results. We are very financially robust and operationally effective."
Record investment of 9.4 billion euros in 2015 were repeated in 2016, said Chakrabarti.
EBRD in 2016 made its largest investments in Turkey, 1.94 billion euros in total, followed by Kazakhstan, one billion euros and then with Poland 700 million euros and fourth-highest investment nation was Egypt, just under 700 million euros.
The attendance of Uzbekistan at the EBRD conference was expected for the first time in several years, said the president, and he also anticipated that at the conference Lebanon would for the first time formally become a country of operation for EBRD. (1 euro=1.09 billion euros)
