The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) yesterday signed a loan agreement of 10 million euros for the provision of 35 CNG buses to Macedonian capital Skopje.
Skopje, a city of more than half a million people, located in the centre of the Balkan peninsula in southern Europe has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) amongst the cities in Europe with the highest concentration of harmful fine particulate matter (PM) 2.5 in the air. The latest data released by the World Health Organization in 2018 shows a PM 2.5 annual mean level of 40 micrograms per m³ in Skopje—four times the recommended levels of 10µg/m³.
Macedonian public enterprise (JSP) will also invest 1.8 million euros (around 2.06 million dollars) in the project, which will provide a fleet of 35 CNG buses to replace diesel buses and thus will cut CO2 emissions by at least 15 percent.
Technical cooperation funds of €1.1 million provided from the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund (SSF) will be available to support reorganisation of the bus operations in Skopje and the preparation of the GCAP.
The technical cooperation package will also help the city to prepare a Green Cities Action Plan by 2020.This is the blueprint through which an individual city that signs up to EBRD Green Cities sets its own goals for environmental improvement and maps ways to achieve them. Skopje is one of 20 cities that have signed up to the EBRD Green Cities programme, of which 15 are already working on individual Green City Action Plans (GCAPs). The new buses in Skopje are the trigger project marking the city’s engagement with EBRD Green Cities.
The Mayor of Skopje Petre Silegov, present at the signing ceremony, said that he expects that with the buses in operation, air pollution of the capital city, fuel consumption and maintenance costs will all be significantly reduced.