metre and sewer tariffs vary between 0.33 and 0.54 euro per cubic metre. While in water supply systems cost recovery levels are satisfactory, the situation regarding sanitation is clearly unsustainable. The coastal urban regions show greater cost recovery ratios than the inland regions, especially regarding the Northeast region where the costs are higher and revenues are lower. A decree defining the water and sanitation tariff policy is being finalized in 2007. The decree determines the basic rules for tariff setting and aims at achieving full cost recovery, in line with the EU Water Framework Directive. In 2010 the government was planning to set up a national tariff equilibrium fund to cross-subsidize utilities in the poorer inland regions with revenues from the wealthier coastal regions. The regulator ERSAR says that it is not aware of a similar mechanism anywhere else in the world. There have been protests against tariff increases under private concessions. For example, residents of Paços de Ferreira, a municipality in northern Portugal, say that after the private company AGS took over their water system the price of water has gone up by around 6% every year. Investment and finance Many water systems in Portugal are quite old, so that there is a substantial requirement for infrastructure rehabilitation. From 2000 to 2006 investment needs in the sector were estimated at 4.23 billion euro, including 2.37 billion euro in bulk water supply and wastewater treatment (vertem "baixa"). Actual investments were in the same order of magnitude, but with a very different breakdown than expected: 3.4 billion euro, or 77% more than expected, had to be invested in bulk supply and wastewater treatment, mainly because cost estimates had been too low and because environmental standards had been tightened. Concerning investments in water distribution and sewers (vertem "alta"), they were only 0.9 billion euro and thus much lower than expected. Many of these investments had to be postponed because of lack of funding. AdP by itself invested 588 million euro in 2006 alone. Grants from the European Regional Development Fund funded about 1.7 billion euro, or 40% of total investments in 2000–2006. Loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to Águas de Portugal and self-generated capital of the utilities funded the remainder of the investments. In October 2006 the EIB approved a 925 million euro loan for investments in eleven regional water and sanitation utilities in Portugal. Since 2000 two mid-term national