The EBRD is lending US$ 55 million to the Russian subsidiary of leading Polish food and drinks can maker Can-Pack S.A. to help finance the construction of a highly energy efficient new production plant and boost competition in Russia’s aluminium drinks can market.
Can-Pack is the major player in the central European steel and aluminium can packaging sector with production plants across Europe as well as in Asia and North Africa.
Its wholly-owned Russian subsidiary Ken-Pak Zavod Upakovki (CPZU) has been an EBRD client since 2008, when it borrowed US$ 35 million to build a factory in Volokolamsk, near Moscow. That plant became fully operational in 2010.
The new EBRD loan will be used to build a second Russian plant, this time in Novocherkassk, near Rostov-on-Don in the south of the country. The new factory’s state-of-the-art production technology is expected to make it one of the most energy efficient production sites of its kind in the world.
“This new facility confirms the successful expansion of Can-Pack in Russia and the attractiveness of the market for our client,” said EBRD Director for Agribusiness Gilles Mettetal. “The plant will enhance competition in the Russian aluminium drinks can sector and become a showcase in terms of can production technologies, especially with regards to energy efficiency.”
The investment is in line with the EBRD’s goal of helping to diversify the Russian economy, in particular by supporting the growth of the manufacturing sector. The EBRD backs foreign direct investments in Russia as an important means of developing local manufacturing facilities to international standards and of transferring technologies and know-how.
In the agribusiness sector alone the EBRD has directly committed over €6.4 billion in over 420 projects across central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States since 1991. The relevant EBRD agribusiness figures for Russia in that same period are over 70 projects totalling €1.9 billion.
