BRUSSELS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The core of the so-called Juncker Plan has mobilised over 264.3 billion euros (323.88 billion U.S. dollars) in investment, the European Commission said Friday.
The Commission said in a press release that following the latest transactions to be approved by the European Investment Bank's (EIB) board of directors, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) -- the core element of the investment plan for Europe, known as the Juncker Plan -- has reached around 84 percent of the original target: mobilising 315 billion euros of investment by summer 2018.
The so-called Juncker Plan, named after Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, is the European Union's (EU) response to declining investment since the 2008 financial and economic crisis.
The EFSI is an EU-budget guarantee providing the EIB Group with a first loss protection. This means that the EIB Group is able to provide financing to higher-risk projects than they normally would.
The Commission said the deals that would benefit from the EU budget guarantee now amount to 53.2 billion euros in financing across all 28 member states. So far, infrastructure and innovation projects -- representing 40.4 billion euros -- have been approved under the EFSI.
In addition, financing agreements - worth 12.8 billion euros - have been approved for small and medium-sized companies, which improve access to financing for 589,000 firms.
As of February, the top five countries ranked in order of EFSI investment, relative to gross domestic product, are Greece, Estonia, Bulgaria, Portugal and Spain. (1 euro = 1.22 U.S. dollars)