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EBRD co-finances flour mill construction in Kyrgyzstan

3 December 2014 15:40 (UTC+04:00)
EBRD co-finances flour mill construction in Kyrgyzstan

By Aynur Jafarova

Kyrgyzstan’s third largest flour producer Elnur Dan LLC, a private company established in 2004, will construct a new flour mill in the south part of the country.

The construction will be realized thanks to a four-year loan worth $4 million jointly allocated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Kyrgyz Investment and Credit Bank (KICB).

The loan to Elnur Dan is being allocated under a special financing facility through which the EBRD and its partner banks can lend together to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

“Supporting small and medium-sized businesses is one of the bank’s most important priorities in the country. The new production facility in the south of the country will help to create jobs and will make this important food much more accessible to the local population. We are proud to support Elnur Dan together with our partners at KICB. The project will also receive support from the European Union through their Investment Facility for Central Asia (IFCA),” Head of the EBRD office in Kyrgyzstan Larisa Manastirli said.

The joint EBRD-EU SME Finance Facility for Central Asia was created in 2012 to support direct lending to SMEs and indirect financing of SMEs via local banks in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Elnur Dan is one of around 20 projects in Central Asia financed under the joint EBRD-EU program, to which the European Union’s IFCA has provided €11 million of funds for credit enhancement support and technical assistance.

Flour is the single most important food for Kyrgyzstan’s population of nearly 5.8 million people; 38 percent of the local diet is based on flour in some form.

Elnur Dan’s existing mill on the outskirts of the capital, Bishkek, produces 38,000 tons of flour annually and 4,000 tons of pasta. The new mill’s equipment is being imported from Turkey and will be built in the country’s most densely populated region, Jalalabad, where 1.1 million people live.

At present, the south of Kyrgyzstan depends partly on flour supplies from the north of the country. These have to be transported by road, which raises costs for the local population. Elnur Dan’s new mill in the south of the country will have the capacity to produce up to 170 tons of flour a day. By comparison, the capacity of the mill in Bishkek is 225 tons of flour a day.

To date, the EBRD has invested over €510 million in 117 projects in Kyrgyzstan.

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