EIB 3bn inaugural EARN issue of 2001: increase of the EARN 4.875% April 2006 under EIB's EARN issuance facility

EIB (AAA/Aaa) is pleased to announce the launch of its inaugural EARN issue of 2001 with a EUR 3bn increase of the EARN 4.875 % 15 April 2006. ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas and Merrill Lynch are mandated to lead manage the increase, which will bring the issue's total outstanding volume to EUR 5bn.

Following a 24-hour marketing and book-building period in Asia, Europe and the Americas, the EUR 3bn increase of the EARN 2006 will be priced tomorrow (11 January 2001) in the context of the market. Payment date will be 17 January.

EIB's EARN programme remains a comprehensive non-sovereign benchmark issuance programme in the EUR market. The EARN yield curve offers investors liquid benchmarks in maturities from 2003 to 2010. Total outstanding volume of the eight EARN benchmarks is EUR 31.4bn, ranging in size from EUR 2bn to EUR 6.1bn. Sixteen Primary Dealers ensure full market-making support for all EARN benchmarks: ABN AMRO, Banca d'Intermediazione Mobiliare IMI, Banca Santander Central Hispano, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Caboto Holding SIM, CDC Marchés, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner KW, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Nomura and UBS Warburg.  EARN market-making is further supported by sixteen non-primary dealers.

Since inception of the EARN programme EIB has been committed to progressively increasing the liquidity of its EARN benchmarks to satisfy the preferences of a wide range of retail and institutional investors. Increase of the EARN 2006 also reaffirms EIB's strategic commitment to benchmark liquidity and high tradability through development of an electronically-traded EUR benchmark curve. The new EUR 5bn EARN 2006 will now be listed and traded on EuroMTS, complementing the EARN 2004 that has traded on EuroMTS' Quasi-government sector since October 2000. In addition, all EARN are traded on Supranational MTS as managed by MTS spa.

EIB remains the only non-sovereign, non-asset backed issuer to offer investors an entire EUR benchmark curve traded on Europe's largest electronic trading systems. EIB will continue throughout 2001 to focus on the consistent increase of outstanding EARN benchmarks to make them eligible for trading simultaneously on EuroMTS as well as Supranational MTS.