EBRD urges Kazakhstan to improve climate for SMEs

Microfinance Focus, Dec. 17, 2009: Speaking at an investment conference in Astana recently, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) President Thomas Mirow has urged the Kazakh authorities to improve the business climate for small companies to help broaden the base of the country’s economy.

Speaking at the 22nd Plenary Session of the Foreign Investors’ Council (FIC), chaired by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Mr Mirow said Kazakhstan had successfully attracted major blue chips with targeted benefits but added that this strategy was not drawing in smaller firms.

Kazakhstan needed to send a clear signal that there could be a successful small and medium-sized business sector in the country, President Mirow said, adding: “The first priority should be to improve the business environment and its predictability.”

The EBRD delegation, which included Business Group Director for Central Asia, Caucasus and south east Europe, Olivier Descamps and was joined by EBRD Board Director, Kurt Bayer, who came to Kazakhstan armed with concrete projects, said a statement.

Two days before the plenary session of the FIC, President Mirow signed a loan agreement in the Kazakh business capital Almaty to provide a $50-million credit line to Bank CenterCredit (BCC) to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Later in Astana, Mr Mirow signed a loan to support the agricultural sector in Kazakhstan. The EBRD is lending US$ 35 million to Kazexportastyk, a leading agro-holding company, to help it implement an ambitious programme of advanced agricultural technology and practices

So far, the EBRD has invested more than US$ 600 million this year in Kazakhstan. Because of its banking system’s heavy dependence on foreign wholesale funding, Kazakhstan became one of the first countries in the EBRD region to be hit by the credit crunch when it started to bite in the summer of 2007.

Keynote speakers included Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov and Lakshmi Mittal, the chairman and CEO of steel group ArcelorMittal, as well as President Mirow.

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