The FINANCIAL — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is strengthening Serbia’s agribusiness potential with a €25 million loan to Sojaprotein, a leading producer of soybean concentrates. Raiffeisen banka a.d. Beograd is providing an equally sized parallel loan as part of the project.
The EBRD’s financing will be used for the expansion of the company’s production facilities as well as for debt refinancing. The market demand for soy-based ingredients is expected to continue to increase due to higher consumer demand for plant-based alternatives to meat products and the company is well positioned to capitalise on such growth.
Sojaprotein operates the largest soybean-processing factory in Serbia, with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes per year. The company uses only non-GMO soybeans for processing, with full traceability and origination from bean growers to the production of finished products.
The company is a subsidiary of the Serbian agribusiness company Victoria Group, recently acquired by MK Group, a longstanding EBRD partner. MK Group, which was founded over 35 years ago, employs over 7,000 people and is the leading agribusiness group in south-eastern Europe. The EBRD’s financing will support MK Group to further develop its production capacity and export prospects.
The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Serbia. The Bank has invested more than €6.3 billion across 277 projects in the country to date. In 2020 alone, the Bank has invested to date €480 million across 26 projects in Serbia.
