EDB to provide a new loan to Bank BelVEB to finance small and medium-sized businesses in Belarus

Almaty, 10 December 2013. Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) signed a five-year loan facility agreement with Bank BelVEB for US $7 million. The funds will be used to finance small and medium-sized businesses in Belarus and fulfil projects in the industrial, services and trade sectors.

The loan is provided in the framework of the EDB Programme for the Support and Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses by Providing Targeted Loan Facilities to Financial Institutions. Bank BelVEB will select sub-borrowers — small and medium-sized businesses that meet the criteria approved by EDB — on its own and provide them with targeted sub-loans for business development.

The project will help create and advance favourable conditions for the sustainable development of the private sector in Belarus, including by means of financing projects aimed at the creation, modernisation, expansion and diversification of industrial production and the services sector as well as the increase in the output of competitive products.

In May 2013 EDB provided a US $10 loan facility to Bank BelVEB for five years for the purposes of trade finance. The loan was intended to be used to finance foreign trade transactions of the bank’s clients in the EDB member states.

Additional Information

Belvnesheconombank OJSC (Bank BelVEB) was established in 1991. This is a full-service credit and financial institution and one of the largest banks in Belarus. Bank BelVEB has leading positions in the banking sphere in terms of export and import transactions and foreign trade finance and serves as a clearing centre for most of Belarusian banks’ payments in foreign currencies and the main operator for the CIS and Baltic banks’ payments in Belarusian roubles. The bank’s strategic shareholder (97.52% of shares) is the Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank, Russia).

Eurasian Development Bank is an international financial institution founded by Russia and Kazakhstan in January 2006 with the mission to facilitate the development of market economies, sustainable economic growth and the expansion of mutual trade and other economic ties in its member states. EDB’s charter capital exceeds US $1.5 billion. The member states of the Bank are the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of Tajikistan. Read more at https://www.eabr.org.