Business news

MINSK, 14 September (BelTA) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) hopes to increase the loan portfolio for Belarus to €700 million before the end of 2018, Head of the EBRD Office in Belarus Alexander Pivovarsky told a press conference on 14 September, BelTA informs.

“The loan portfolio totaled €500 million in early 2018. According to the estimates, the loan portfolio will increase to €650-700 million by the end of the year. This will partially depend on how much payments will be made on the previous projects,” Alexander Pivovarsky said.

Since the start of 2018, the EBRD has signed 16 projects with Belarus worth of almost €230 million, or about $270 million. The volume has already exceeded all the operations of the previous year (€163 million). “We continue to expand operations in Belarus and hope to sign several interesting deals in the public and private sectors this year. Perhaps, this will be the most successful year in the history of the bank's activity in Belarus,” the EBRD representative noted.

Among the promising deals he mentioned the project to raise a syndicated loan for Belinvestbank together with the EBRD, the project with the Minsk Vodokanal water supply company. “We are discussing other, smaller projects with the private sector. A large set of projects with the public sector is in the pipeline. Next month we will launch a public-private partnership project. Few days are left, we hope, before we launch the road show, before we bring it to the market. Once it is launched, we and the government will discuss other PPP projects that we could implement in the future. Active work continues,” Alexander Pivovarsky said.

Belarus has been a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development since 1992. Since it started working in Belarus, the EBRD has invested over €2 billion in 95 projects in various branches of the national economy. A delegation of the EBRD Board of Directors is visiting Belarus this week. This is its first visit since the EBRD adopted a new country strategy for Belarus in 2016. The focus of the EBRD strategy is on pre-privatization support of financial and industrial companies and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the private sector. Jointly with the EBRD, Belarus continues the implementation of projects in water supply and water disposal systems, energy efficiency and transport.