(Adnkronos) – Italy will make a 30 million euro loan to Ukraine to build a new wing for the southern port city of Odessa’s regional pediatric hospital and a two million euro loan for medical equipment for the hospital, according to the foreign ministry.
The two loans are part of a package of projects and programmes worth over 60 million euros announced by the ministry after a meeting of its Joint Committee for Development Cooperation 2025 and ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference taking place in Rome on Thursday to Friday.
The loan to supply medical equipment for the Odessa regional pediatric hospital will be channelled through Italy’s Military Chemical Pharmaceutical Institute in Florence, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Italy’s support for the Ukrainian health sector will be further strengthened through an ambitious multi-year programme, to be launched in the coming months that will draw on various Italian centres of excellence, the statement said.
At the Joint Committee for Development Cooperation 2025 meeting, deputy foreign minister Edmondo Cirielli approved a 22 million euro top-up for Italian civil society organisation initiatives in Ukraine under a multisectoral emergency scheme launched in December.
“The additional funding will support 13 new projects put forward by well-established and highly regarded Italian organisations active in the country,” the statement concluded.
International participants at the Ukraine Recovery Conference made financial commitments of over 10 billion euros to support the war-shattered country’s rebuilding, Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni announced on Thursday.
