THE Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, will be elected chairman of the governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) at its annual meeting here today.

Though largely honorific, the appointment will involve Mr Quinn in some additional responsibility during the year and he will chair the next annual meeting of governors in London in 1997.

He said last night that his election, the result of negotiations behind the scenes, was a tribute to the contribution made by Irish officials to the work of the bank from its foundation.

"We were in at the birth," he said. "The bank was conceived during the second Irish presidency of the EU under CJ Haughey." The chairmanship was a great opportunity to put Ireland on the map we see what that can mean with mad cow disease".

Since it was set up in 1991, with a capital of 10 billion ecu (about £8 billion) the EBRD has made cumulative commitments of nearly six billion ecu to capital projects in Eastern and Central Europe and the former states of the Soviet Union, with a bias towards the private sector. Currently projects totalling just under eight billion ecu have been approved by the board of directors.

The heavy emphasis on loans to the relatively developed countries in Central Europe in the first years of the bank's operations has begun to change with the acceleration of economic growth in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states.

The governors today are to give their approval to a doubling of the bank's capital to 20 billion ecu and it is expected that the bank in future will be completely self sufficient.

As only 30 per cent of the capital is paid up, the budgetary impact for Ireland which holds 0.3 per cent of the equity, will be felt effectively for 12 years at an average annual rate of about £500,000.

Several Irish organisations, including ESB Ireland, the IDA, the ICC, AIB and Devco have been involved in consultancies under the bank's aegis since 1991.