EBRD wins global sustainable trade finance award

EBRD wins global sustainable trade finance award
By Marwa Nassar - -

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development won a global leadership award for sustainable trade finance.

The bank’s Green Trade Facilitation Program (Green TFP) won the GTR Leaders in Trade global award for its significant contribution to sustainability in trade. Other shortlisted nominees in this category were ABN AMRO, Barclays and HSBC.

The GTR Leaders in Trade awards, organized by Global Trade Review, a leading trade finance publication, highlight excellence in the trade, commodity, supply chain and export finance, as well as fintech markets.

EBRD First Vice President Jürgen Rigterink said: “We are very proud of this recognition for our pioneering Green TFP, which uses the well-established mechanisms of trade finance in support of supply of goods and technologies needed in addressing climate change. In the current coronavirus crisis it is critical to keep trade flowing and it is also a stark reminder not to ignore the continuous need to support transition to a green economy. We can expect sustainable trade to increase significantly in the post-crisis period as demand for sustainably sourced, low-carbon and climate resilient materials and technologies takes off.”

How Green TFP supported sustainability:

The EBRD’s Green TFP allows partner banks under the EBRD’s Trade Facilitation Program (TFP) to use their existing TFP facilities for the financing of exports, imports and the local distribution of imported green technologies and materials, in line with the Bank’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach. The GET expertise provided by EBRD energy efficiency and climate change experts has been instrumental in the development of the Green TFP.

Since 2016, Green TFP has supported almost 900 foreign trade transactions involving trade in higher performance technologies and materials with a total volume of €675 million across 22 economies where the EBRD invests.

These resulted in annual energy savings of 1,513,200 MWh, water savings of 1,681,399 m3 and emission reductions of 605,376 tons, CO2 equivalent.

Green TFP transactions to date include the import of wind power generation equipment from Denmark to Ukraine, the import of small-scale combined heat and power technologies from Italy to Lebanon, the import of water-saving bottling lines from Germany to Armenia and from France to Tunisia, the import of residential lifts from Greece to Kosovo and the export of sustainably sourced wood products from Romania to Egypt.

The EBRD’s Trade Facilitation Program, launched in 1999, aims to promote foreign trade to, from and among the economies where the EBRD invests. Through the program, the EBRD provides guarantees to international confirming banks and short-term loans to selected local banks and factoring companies for on-lending to local exporters, importers and distributors.

The EBRD’s TFP currently includes 121 local banks in 30 economies where the EBRD invests, with limits exceeding €5 billion in total and more than 800 confirming banks worldwide.

اترك تعليقا

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles