The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) and the vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical companies Metinvest have announced the signing of a loan agreement in the amount of EUR 62 million to finance and refinance the purchase of machinery and equipment for its iron ore enterprises (GOK).
“The seven-year credit facility was granted with a two-year grace period for principal repayment,” the group said in a press release.
“This news marks the culmination of significant efforts since July and is an important milestone in our history, as the facility is our first from an international financial institution. At Metinvest, we share the values of BSTDB and intend to use this financing to make our business more efficient, as well as to increase our overall contribution towards the Black Sea region’s economic wellbeing,” Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the Chief Executive Officer of Metinvest, said.
“Working with an international financial institution has been a highly positive new experience for Metinvest. I would like to express my gratitude to the BSTDB team for their continued support throughout the process and for helping to make this transaction happen. We are proud of this new partnership and are eager to develop it further,” Alexander Lyubarev, the Director of Corporate Finance and Treasury at Metinvest, reported.
“We are happy to assist Metinvest, a leading manufacturer and employer in Ukraine, in implementing its development and capital expenditure program focused on improved production technology, efficiency and environmental impact. Given the importance of this sector to the country and its export potential, this operation will have an important developmental impact in Ukraine. As a regional development bank, we welcome that the group plans to buy new equipment from and export its products to other BSTDB member countries, thus strengthening the regional cooperation,” BSTDB President Dmitry Pankin noted.
By the end of 2020, Ukraine plans to attract a $170 million loan from the World Bank out of the $300 million provided, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.
“Today, on December 14, Ukraine and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development signed an agreement on the second additional financing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for the Social Safety Nets Modernization Project,” the Ministry of Finance said in a message on the website.
“The main goal is social assistance and social services for low-income families, as well as assistance to those affected by the adverse economic impact of the pandemic,” the press service said, quoting Minister Serhiy Marchenko.
As the Ministry of Finance recalled, this is the second additional financing of the specified project, the total amount of the loan for it should be $750 million.
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors on Saturday night decided to provide Ukraine with a $300 million loan for the Second additional financing aimed at overcoming the consequences of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic for the project “Modernization of social support system for the population of Ukraine.”
“Social protection measures, for the implementation of which a new loan is provided, will help the government of Ukraine finance social assistance programs in order to save about one million Ukrainians from falling below the poverty line,” the bank’s release quoted the words of its regional director for Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine) Arup Banerji.
The World Bank’s support for Ukraine to protect low-income citizens who have been severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak is a powerful anti-poverty response, he said.
The World Bank reminds that the decision on the first additional financing for the above project in the amount of $150 million was made on April 30 this year.
According to the bank’s forecasts, due to the consequences of the pandemic, the poverty level in Ukraine could grow by 4 percentage points, reaching about 23% by the end of 2020.
Its experts report that the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic requires the introduction of prompt emergency response measures in the country and the provision of emergency cash assistance to citizens. It also highlighted the need to strengthen social protection infrastructure and develop systems capable of delivering payments to people in times of crisis.
“The allocated funds will help Ukraine finance urgent measures in the field of social protection to overcome the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which provide for emergency cash payments to those citizens and households who have lost their jobs or sources of income as a result of the pandemic,” the message says.
The second additional funding will support the introduction of an online social assistance system and the expansion of social benefits and pensions through direct money transfers to bank accounts. Payments to families with low income will be carried out under the current program of state social assistance to low-income families, the World Bank said.
The World Bank estimates that 60% of Ukrainian citizens who are on the brink of poverty due to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak are not yet recipients of social assistance under one of the existing social protection programs.
State-controlled Ukreximbank (Kyiv) with the assistance of the World Bank has provided a $22 million loan to Protein-Invest vegetable oil producer.
According to a report on the bank’s website, $14 million was used to refinancing an investment loan, and the company will receive another $8 million as part of a sub-project for the purchase of soybean seeds for further processing.
“Protein-Invest plant is increasing its production capacity, taking into account the global tendencies of increasing the consumption of oilseeds. To meet the needs of the enterprise in a sufficient volume of working capital for the purchase of raw materials, the bank made the most of the program of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The sub-project worth $ 8 million was approved for the project of access to long-term financing, a mandatory criterion for the participation of enterprises in which is an export-oriented activity or the attraction of local supply chains to this direction,” board member of Ukreximbank Oleksandr Ihnatenko said.
Protein-Invest enterprise has a soybean oil extraction plant with a capacity of 700 tonnes per day. It supplies vegetable oil and high-protein meal to the market of Ukraine and other countries, which are further used in the food industry and for the manufacture of animal feed. Production was launched in the village of Dunayivtsi, Khmelnytsky region, in 2019.
According to the unified state register of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, t
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) could provide a senior loan of up to EUR 25 million to the communal company Dnipro Municipal Energy Servicing Company (Dniprovska Municipalna Energoservisna Kompanya, the city of Dnipro) for energy efficiency investments in 98 public buildings, including 67 kindergartens, 27 schools and 4 outpatient clinics.
“The investments are expected to result in strong improvement of buildings’ condition through renovation of facilities and meeting heating requirements, improved comfort level and reliability of services at kindergartens, schools and clinics, as well as reduction of energy and maintenance costs of the buildings and decrease of CO2 emissions,” the bank said on Tuesday.
The project is pending of the decision of the EBRD board on October 13.
According to the document, the loan maturity is up to 13 years, including up to three years grace, with 20 equal semi-annual repayments. The loan will be secured by a full municipal guarantee from the city.
The loan is expected to be co-financed by up to EUR 5.5 million investment grant from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P), subject to grant approval by the E5P Assembly of Contributors.
The local contribution of up to EUR 2.5 million will cover additional energy conservation measures and capital repairs.
The EBRD said that the loan will be a sub-project under the Public Sector Energy Efficiency Financing Framework (PSEEF), consisting of municipal-guaranteed loans to municipal energy management companies in Ukraine to facilitate critical improvements in energy efficiency measures in public buildings in a number of cities across Ukraine.
The loan portfolio of banks in July-August 2020 increased by 3%, while in the first half of the year it decreased by 5%, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kyrylo Shevchenko has said.
“In July and August, the banks really lent to the population much more actively than in the first half of the year. Indeed, in the first half of the year we saw a reduction in the loan portfolio by 5%. In the two months, the portfolio grew by about 3%,” he said during a press briefing by the National Bank.
According to him, over the past three months, the banks have lowered lending rates, in particular, rates on loans for businesses are below 10%, while in the first half of the year the average rate on such loans was 11%.
“Regarding the rates for the population, unfortunately, there is no such a trend, with the exception of rates on mortgage loans. Rates on mortgage loans are average, if we started the year at a level of almost 20%, then in July they were about 13% and in August we expect average rates on mortgage loans to be even lower,” Shevchenko added.
In addition, he noted a decrease in the volume of non-performing loans (NPL), in particular, over the past two months, their share decreased by 1.5%, excluding the revised statistics for August.
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