The International Finance Corporation (IFC) from the World Bank group has signed loan agreements on the provision of financing to the largest sugar producer in Ukraine Astarta for the amount of $30 million and the large pork producer Nyva Pereyaslavschyny for $12.5 million.
“Agribusiness is a priority for IFC globally, and Ukraine is very important to our strategy in the sector,’ Stephanie von Friedeburg, IFC’s chief operating officer, said during a signing ceremony in Kyiv.
According to the press release, IFC’s financing will support a two-year investment program aimed at improving the company’s resource efficiency and competitiveness by modernizing its sugar plants. This would help reduce the use of gas, electricity, and water. The program also aims to help Astarta—which grows and trades grain and oilseed—purchase modern and efficient farm machinery and construct of new storage facilities.
IFC is providing long-term debt financing to support Nyva’s investment program, which includes constructing a new meat-processing facility that will become one of the country’s first to comply with European Union standards for food safety and animal welfare. The company will also build a new pig farm and a rendering plant capable of recycling up to 50 tonnes of waste every day, helping to reduce its environmental footprint.
This is IFC’s second investment in Nyva.
Pork production in Ukraine remains inefficient and highly fragmented, with many smaller producers lacking sufficient quality controls, IFC said.
The Board of the World Bank has approved the provision of a long-term loan of $12.5 million to Nyva Pereyaslavschyny, the largest group of pig companies in Ukraine. According to a posting on the website of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the decision was made on April 25, 2018. The funds will be sent to finance the company’s 2018-2019 capital expansion program. The total cost of the project is $35 million.
As reported, at the end of April 2015 the IFC issued $25 million loans to Nyva Pereyaslavschyny to support the plans of the group to expand operations and refinance medium-term debt.
The Nyva Pereyaslavschyny group of companies cultivates about 23,000 hectares of land. Its grain storage capacity is about 150,000 tonnes, the annual export of grains is 100,000 tonnes. The group includes nine pig breeding complexes. The work to collect permits for the construction of the tenth farm has been started. The group plans in 2018 to build a new specialized meat processing plant with a capacity of 240 animals per hour.
