Duff calls for Regional Bank for Eastern England

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 29th Sep 1999

Following a series of meetings in the last few days with key players in the Eastern region, Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff has called for them to adopt a "greater sense of what is possible in this region, and a more ambitious approach to regional development". He has unveiled plans for a new regional credit facility, backed by the European Investment Bank.

In a message to those he has met this week - organisations which include the Eastern England Development Agency, the Government Office for the East of England, BAA, BNFL, the CPRE and Ford - Duff says:

"Eastern England has to use its own resources to become more enterprising and successful. We cannot sit back and hope that HM Treasury will pay an adequate share of public funding to support rural development and hi-tech development. Nor will there be sufficient public funding to pay for the radical modernisation and expansion of our public transport system.

"Europe's increasingly integrated capital market has the potential to back the most enterprising of EuropeÕs regions. Eastern England must be in that rank of top credit-worthy regions. In its new regional economic development strategy to be unveiled in October, the EEDA must concentrate on building the public-private partnerships and the autonomous political credibility that will attract European capital.

"I am exploring with the new European Commission and the EIB the possibility of establishing a regional credit facility for Eastern England that will provide some of the investment we need."