EBRD announced that it has approved in principle project financing of $50 million for a joint leasing program of Raiffeisen Aval and John Deere. If
approved the project will enable greater access of credit worthy farmers to John Deere equipment. One of the difficulties facing the agriculture
production industry has been lack of long term finance for new or replacement farm equipment. However to put the potential project in perspective
two weeks ago Astarta announced it had received a $25 million line of credit from Citibank guaranteed by US OPIC - a US government export credit
guarantee. Astarta farms roughly 250,000 hectares and was looking to replace approximately 25% of its farm equipment. If the full $50 million is
eventually approved it would provide long term credit resources to fully equip an area of 125,000 hectares. Given that Ukraine has 40 million
hectares of farm land, the project will not have significant impact except for the lucky few. Although not much, John Deere appears to be doing
better this year in Ukraine than last.
 

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