8 January 1998: Towards the end of last month, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced that it had agreed a financing package worth US$ 8.71 million for Elizovo Glass Fac…
8 January 1998: Towards the end of last month, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced that it had agreed a financing package worth US$ 8.71 million for Elizovo Glass Factory, a Belarussian-Canadian glass container manufacturer operating in Belarus. The EBRD said that Elizovo would receive a US$ 7.71 million loan and an equity investment worth US$ 1 million. “As the first stand-alone private sector industrial project undertaken by the EBRD in Belarus, the financing will foster the development of the emerging private sector and will promote foreign direct investment,” George Krivicky, Director of the EBRD“s Baltics/Belarus team said in a statement. Elizovo Glass was set up in December by the Canadian firm Consumers Packaging Inc., Lada/OMC Holding S.A., a Belarussian-British company, and a glass container factory in Belarus called Oktyabr Glass. The EBRD said it is currently willing to invest only in private sector projects in Belarus due to a lack of political and economic reform in the state sector.