News block
Published: 21 May 2015 г.
US$ 3 million will enable company to expand and strengthen competition in the sector. The Kyrgyz Investment and Credit Bank (KICB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are continuing to support medium-sized private companies in the Kyrgyz Republic through a special joint-financing mechanism which makes it possible to offer larger and longer-term financing.
A loan of US$ 3 million, which will be funded 50/50 by KICB and the EBRD, will be provided to Standard Oil, a private Kyrgyz company, to expand in more remote regions of the country, construct modern fuel depots and invest in more efficient trucks.
Standard Oil operates a chain of petrol filling stations under the Petroleum brand name across the country, with 80 stations already in operation and five new ones planned thanks to the new loan. Having originated in the less economically developed south of the Kyrgyz Republic, the company has grown to be the second-largest player in the sector.
Aida Sitdikova, EBRD Director for Energy and Natural Resources, Russia and Central Asia, said: “The Bank's support to small and medium-sized businesses in the Kyrgyz Republic is well demonstrated by this engagement with Standard Oil, a dynamic and growing fuel-retail operator.”
This is the 10th joint project of the EBRD and KICB since 2012 that has provided longer-term financing to medium-sized enterprises in the Kyrgyz Republic. In one of the previous projects, a
food producer in Osh, Shirin Sulaiman, received US$ 1 million in joint financing.