BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 25. The EU, in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), is implementing the “Enhanced Competitiveness of Tajik Agribusiness Project” (ECTAP), a source in EBRD told Trend.
The ECTAP Programme, which has a budget of 10 million euros from the EU and 25 million euros from EBRD loans, aims to stimulate economic growth in Tajikistan through the development of agriculture and agribusiness.
Since the beginning of the Programme in 2014, lending under the ECTAP Programme has accelerated via local HUMO, Bank Eskhata, IMON International and Bank Arvand.
"Over $15.6 million of ECTAP eligible loans have been disbursed along with $3 million of EU grants to support beneficiaries across Tajikistan. These beneficiaries include over 780 farmers and agriculture MSMEs," the source in the EBRD said.
Investments include equipment like innovative tractors, drip irrigation equipment, cold storage, greenhouses, poultry production lines and modern agriculture processing machinery.
"In the first half of this year, two partner financial institutions under the EBRD Green Economy Financing Facility Tajikistan: Humo (a microcredit deposit-taking organization) and Bank Arvand have signed $7 million loans with $1.54 million allocated grants," the EBRD says.
One of the main goals for the ECTAP Programme in Tajikistan, which is due to end in May 2023, for the rest of 2022 are continuing on-the-job training of loan officers; adding more pre-approved technologies to the Green Technology Selector (GTS) and providing additional advisory assignments to agriculture SMEs.