By Anton Usov

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is promoting green financing, lending to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and women entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan by providing a loan package of US$60 million in Kazakh Tenge equivalent to the country’s leading lender Bank CenterCredit (BCC).

The Kazakh lender will receive a loan of up to US$20 million in under the EBRD’s Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) designed to support domestic SMEs ready to invest in climate mitigation and adaptation technologies and services. The financing will be supported by grant funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Austria. GEFF is part of the EBRD’s commitment to scale up its climate and environmental finance under the Green Economy Transition (GET) approach with the aim to become a majority green bank by 2025.

A further EBRD loan of up to US$30 million will be used by BCC to increase lending to micro, small and medium sized businesses across Kazakhstan. Borrowers under the loan will benefit from grant resources provided under the EU Investment Facility for Central Asia.

A US$10 million Women in Business (WiB) component of the package will help promote women’s entrepreneurship and business activity by assisting women with access to finance, know-how and technical advice. The initiative also provides technical support to financial institutions to enhance their services to women-led businesses. It is supported by funds provided by the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The GEFF programme operates through a network of over 150 local financial institutions across 27 countries, supported around €5 billion(US$5.95billion) of EBRD finance. To date more than 200,000 investments have collectively avoided annual CO2 emissions approximately 9 million tonnes.

To date, the EBRD has invested more than US$ 7.95 billion in the economy of Kazakhstan through 280 projects.