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EBRD lends €2.8 million to Uzbek brewer
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is lending €2.8 million
to privately owned brewer Mekhnat Pivo to help it improve quality and double
its beer production capacity.
Uzbek beer sales have grown strongly for several years. Yet only a third of
the beer consumed by Uzbeks last year was made locally and the rest was
imported. Uzbek beer tends to be made region by region by a variety of local
companies. The strategy of Mekhnat Pivo, which is based on the outskirts of
the capital, Tashkent, is to establish good quality local brands and become
the leading brewery for the whole of Uzbekistan.
Uzbek buyers perceive beer as a refreshing summer drink. This means that up to
20 per cent of sales take place in a single summer month. Mekhnat Pivo has
already doubled its peak production capacity to 25,000 hectolitres a month in
the past year. In January 2004, its business was separated from the
established agro-firm Mekhat’s production of wine, mineral water and juice
concentrates.
With the EBRD loan, Mekhnat Pivo now aims to double its peak monthly capacity
again by mid-2005. The company will also step up its marketing activities and
accelerate the establishment of a distribution network emphasising regional
sales.
The EBRD has signed more than 220 agribusiness projects worth a total of €3.5
billion throughout central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of
Independent States. Hans Christian Jacobsen, the EBRD’s Director for
Agribusiness, said this project shows that the EBRD can cooperate with
progressive companies in Uzbek agribusiness. We intend to increase our
financing of this key economic sector, he added.
The loan is part of the “Early Transition Countries” (ETC) initiative launched
by the EBRD last year to stimulate market activity in its poorest countries of
operation by using a streamlined approach to financing more and smaller
projects.
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