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EBRD makes US$ 6.5 million loan to Moscow telecommunications company
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) today announced a US$ 6.5 million (ECU 5.1 million) loan to Enhanced Digital Network (EDN), a Soviet company, to finance the installation and operation of an enhanced international digital telecommunications system in the Moscow area. Commercial banks will be invited to participate in the loan.
EDN will operate, under the name SOVINTEL, a telecommunication system which will provide high-quality, direct-dial international voice, data and facsimile transmission services to Moscow hotels and business centres. Entirely separate from the present Soviet international system, it will be among the first of its kind in the Soviet Union.
The Bank's loan will help to finance the heart of the system, an international gateway switch which has the potential to handle up to 20,000 connections simultaneously. It will also help to finance ten telecommunications systems and support equipment for each.
EDN is a joint venture between the Main Trunk Lines Control Centre (50%), a division of the Soviet Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication, and SOVINET (50%), a general partnership between GTE International Communication Services Corporation and San Francisco/Moscow Teleport.
This project will help to increase hard currency revenue in Russia.
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