EU disburses additional 4-bln-euro loan to Ukraine

The European Union (EU) has disbursed a new loan to Ukraine totaling some 4 billion euros, of which 2 billion will be specifically allocated for the procurement of drones, the European Commission announced in a press released on Wednesday.

Ukraine's Ministry of Finance said on the day that the country had received the loan. The funds were transferred to Ukraine's state budget under the Group of Seven (G7)'s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) for Ukraine Initiative, the ministry said.

The European Commission's announcement clarified that the loan is the ninth tranche under its exceptional Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) program to support Ukraine's national defense. The EU and Ukraine agreed that half of the new funds would be specifically allocated for drone procurement.

In total, the MFA loans have amounted to 18.1 billion euros and represent the EU's contribution to the 45-billion-euro G7-led ERA loans initiative. The repayment of these two loans intends to draw on the proceeds generated from Russia's overseas assets held in the EU.

According to the announcement, the total loan provided by the European Commission to Ukraine under the MFA program has so far reached 14 billion euros since the beginning of 2025. Since the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, the total amount of EU funding support to Ukraine has approached 178 billion euros.

China's outstanding aggregate social financing -- the total amount of financing to the real economy -- reached 442.12 trillion yuan (about 63.4 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2025, up 8.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

The country's aggregate social financing stood at 35.6 trillion yuan (about 5.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up by 3.34 trillion yuan (about 479 billion U.S. dollars) from the year 2024, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

According to the data, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.5 percent year on year to 340.29 trillion yuan (about 48.8 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of December.

In addition, outstanding yuan loans stood at 271.91 trillion yuan (about 39 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2025, up 6.4 percent year on year.