| The Nordic
Countries The Nordic Investment Bank
The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) has its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland.
The bank was established in 1976 to direct international capital to the
Nordic countries. The bank has a "triple A" status awarded by the two leading
American rating institutes. This high credit rating is explained by two
factors; the bank's joint Nordic ownership and its cautious loan policy,
in which adequate collateral is always required and ill-prepared or purely
speculative applications are rejected.
The bank's main role is to assist Nordic firms in financing industrial
projects, environmental schemes, ports, power plants and tourist facilities,
amongst other things.
NIB also supplies investment loans for projects which can serve Nordic
interests in credit-worthy developing countries and in Central and Eastern
Europe, but the main activities funded today are located in southeast Asia.
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Hekla, the most famous volcano in Iceland
One of the main interests of the Nordic Investment
Bank is environmental conservation. The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation
(NEFCO) is a subsidiary which works on a trans-national level. NEFCO's aim
is to finance measures to combat pollution in Poland, the former USSR, Hungary,
the former Czechoslovakia and the Baltic States. Funding is supplied as
share capital or loans for joint projects with a Nordic partner to improve
the environment. |
