Astarta Agro-Industrial Holding, the country’s largest sugar producer, will expand its support for the development of agricultural microbusinesses by raising EUR1.5 million from a partner bank in Germany in 2023, said Viktor Ivanchyk, CEO of the agricultural holding.
“We only help small businesses. We don’t give money, we give equipment. The equipment that is necessary for their specific business. This is a good synergy between large companies like ours and small businesses that exist in the regions of our presence,” he said on Wednesday at the Business Breakfast with Forbes Ukraine.
Ivanczyk said that since the beginning of the war, he has personally supported a number of social projects implemented by the agricultural holding, including those aimed at supporting micro and small agricultural businesses.
“I was amazed when 220 applications were submitted for the 60 projects we announced a year ago. We processed them all, looked at them, and decided that 60 projects was not enough. Therefore, we asked the bank to extend the project,” said the CEO of the agricultural holding.
According to him, in 2022, partner banking institutions in Germany provided EUR 1.2 million for the implementation of this social project, and in 2023 they will provide Astarta with another EUR 1.5 million. “We are increasing the amount of assistance and the number of projects,” the CEO of the agricultural holding emphasized and added that there are currently about 100 of them.
Ivanchyk noted that the assistance is provided to agricultural microbusinesses mainly in the regions where the agricultural holding operates. The agricultural holding has one requirement for the project participants – to work on the basis of an honest, responsible attitude towards partners and the community based on the goals and principles of sustainable development.
“I see this as a great opportunity to build an ecosystem. This system is built not only on mutual economic benefits. It is built on a common philosophy. This makes us believe that the project will last as long as possible,” Ivanchyk summarized.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In the first half of 2023, Astarta’s revenue from sales of key products increased by 64.8% to UAH 10.72 billion year-on-year. The main contribution was made by sales of sugar – UAH 3.27 billion, up 75.5%, corn – UAH 2.66 billion (+53.2%) and soybean meal – UAH 1.96 billion (+84.5%).
