EBRD helps Ukraine’s Astarta expand its grain and sugar business
Project to meet significant environmental benchmarks The EBRD is supporting Astarta-Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest vertically integrated agricultural holding listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, to optimise the firm’s logistics and replace warehouses with modern storage facilities equipped with state-of-the-art control systems. A seven-year loan of up to US$ 25 million will be used by Astarta to construct, extend or acquire grain and sugar storage facilities in the Poltava and Khmelnytsky regions of Ukraine. The project is in line with the EBRD’s Green Economy Transition approach, under which the Bank is promoting investments in energy and resource efficiency as well as stimulating innovation. The investment is expected to result in energy and resource savings as well as reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Once implemented, the project will achieve natural gas savings in excess of 750,000 m3 per year and reduce grain losses by up to 3,500 tonnes per year. The overall reduction in GHG emissions is expected to be around 1,600 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The project benefits from technical assistance provided by the Japan-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund. Sevki Acuner, EBRD Director for Ukraine, said: «We are glad to support Astarta, a client whose long-term plans align with the values of the Bank in terms of reducing energy and resource consumption.» Viktor Ivanchyk, Astarta founder and CEO said: «We are proud about our excellent long-term partnership with EBRD. The Bank supports successful growth of Astarta for almost ten years, and we are looking forward to working together for many years to come». The EBRD is the largest international financial investor in Ukraine. To date, the Bank has made a cumulative commitment in the country of almost ˆ11.7 billion through 384 projects since the start of its operations there in 1993.
