Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is supplying fresh funds and creating new growth opportunities for grassroots businesses in Uzbekistan by providing a financial package of US$10 million to one of the country’s largest private lenders, Ipak Yuli Bank.

The package consists of a senior US$ 6 million loan under the Bank’s Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF), which will improve access to green technologies for local households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This loan is supported by technical cooperation funds provided by the TaiwanBusiness-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund and the government of Austria. 

The remaining US$ 4 million is being provided under the EBRD’s Central Asian Women in Business Programme, supported by grant funding from the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi). This component of the package will help to promote women’s entrepreneurship and business activity by assisting with access to finance, technology and technical advice. 

GEFF Uzbekistan is part of the EBRD’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach, through which the Bank aims to become a majority green bank by 2025. The programme operates through a network of more than 170 local financial institutions across 28 countries and has channelled more than €5.8 billion of EBRD financing to more than 220,000 clients to date. These projects have led to annual CO2 emission reductions of more than 9 million tonnes so far.

To date, the EBRD has invested almost €3.8 billion in 121 projects across the country.