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EBRD lends Serbia’s Victoria Group €10 mln for agribusiness
Loan to help subsidiary Mladost purchase more seeds to increase oil production
The EBRD is lending Mladost - Sid, a Serbian edible oil processing company,
owned by Victoria Group, a major Agribusiness company, €10 million to buy more
sunflower seeds to increase production of its main products, including crude
sunflower oil, and sunflower meal, a by-product of sunflower seed crushing
used as animal feed.
The loan is being provided under the EBRD Agriculture Commodity Financing
Programme (ACFP), created to lend local agribusiness companies finance by
using agriculture commodities as collateral.
Gilles Mettetal, Director of Agribusiness at the EBRD, said this is an
important project that will help the company to grow in the competitive edible
oil sector in Serbia. At the same time, the Bank is demonstrating innovative
ways to give local businesses access to finance, he added.
Established in 1980, Mladost was acquired – in 2001 – by Sojaprotein, the
largest producer of soybean in southeast Europe, which is in turn
majority-owned by Victoria Group,. Since the acquisition, Mladost has
increased its oilseed crushing capacity from 100,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes.
Sojaprotein has the largest Soya collection network in Serbia and works with
over 400 cooperatives which have relationships with over 40,000 farmers.
Zoran Mitrovic, President of Victoria Group’s Managing Board, said: “We are
pleased to partner with the EBRD on this project, which will allow the company
to further increase purchases of sunflower seeds from farmers, and expand its
cooperation with oilseed growers in Serbia to create markets for their
products locally and globally.”
Dragica Pilipovic-Chaffey, EBRD Director for Serbia and Montenegro, said this
builds on a number of recent projects the Bank has financed in the Serbian
agribusiness sector and is an integral part of the EBRD’s strategy to promote
wider use of commodity-based lending throughout the region.
The EBRD is the largest investor in Serbia, having committed more than €1
billion in around 66 projects. In the agribusiness sector alone, the Bank has
to date committed €4.1 billion in more than 285 projects across central and
Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
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