The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is promoting green lending and facilitating trade in Uzbekistan by offering a financial facility of up to US$ 45 million (€42.5 million) to a major private lender, Ipak Yuli Bank.

The facility consists of two components. A senior loan of up to US$ 20 million (€18.9 million) under the EBRD’s Uzbekistan Green Economy Financing Facility II (GEFF Uzbekistan II) will be disbursed in the local currency and will improve access to green and climate-resilient technologies for local households and small and medium-sized enterprises. This will be the first loan under the GEFF Uzbekistan II.

The second component is a US$ 25 million (€23.6 million) limit increase under the EBRD’s Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP) that brings the Bank’s TFP total limit to US$ 50 million (€47.2 million). The increase in the TFP limit will enable Ipak Yuli Bank, one of the most active TFP-issuing banks in Uzbekistan, to scale up its growing trade finance business and help Uzbek firms to import necessary goods, services and equipment, and to export their products.

The GEFF Uzbekistan II is supported by technical cooperation funding provided the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) with contributions from Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and the Action for Equality and Gender Multi-donor Cooperation Fund (A4EG) with contributions from Japan, Lithuania and Taipei China to promote inclusive green lending.

The GEFF Uzbekistan II is part of the EBRD’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach, through which the Bank aims to become a majority green bank by 2025. Through the GET approach, the EBRD will increase green financing to more than 50 per cent of its annual business volume by 2025. Since 2006 the EBRD has signed €49 billion in green investments and financed more than 2,600 green projects, which are expected to reduce 124 million tonnes of carbon emissions yearly.