The project sponsor is KICB. Established in August 2001, KICB is a licensed commercial bank, based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The Bank is a full-service, deposit-taking institution regulated by the National Bank of Kyrgyz Republic, NBKR, and licensed to operate nationally. KICB’s founders and shareholders include: the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (“AKFED”) (30.0%); IFC (20.0%); DEG (20.0%); EBRD (20.0%); and the Kyrgyz State Property Committee (SPC) (10.0%). Additionally, because it provided concessional loans to the Kyrgyz government for the purchase of shares in the Bank and for a credit line facility to the Bank, KfW is a co-founder but not a shareholder.

IFC’s proposed investment is a long-term loan of $2.5 million.

2.50 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	2.50
Equity

* These investment figures are indicative

KICB is headquartered in Bishkek.

With this project, IFC is expected to continue its high impact contribution to economic development, poverty reduction, and financial sector development in Kyrgyz Republic. The project is intended to support KICB to finance medium- to long-term sub-projects and facilitate a greater degree of private sector participation in the economy. It will improve and increase access to term finance for a key sector to the development of Kyrgyz Republic, the SMEs, who are the Bank’s primary client base. A further and long-term benefit could be reduced costs for the SMEs as competition among banks intensifies and productivity improvements for SMEs that uses the financing to upgrade their productive capacity. Additionally, capital investment requirements of SMEs in Kyrgyz Republic are currently not met by existing banks. Expansion of financing available for the large under-served group of SMEs by KICB will directly contribute to employment generation and raise incomes for the poor. In this project, IFC will: - assist KICB in developing access to term finance on commercial terms without a government guarantee; - help one of the most active lenders to the private sector in Kyrgyz Republic to expand its financings of SMEs; - improve access to long-term finance for SMEs in Kyrgyz Republic.

This is a category FI Type 1 project according to IFC’s environmental and social review procedure. KICB follows EBRD’s guidelines in appraising subprojects for environmental risks and in reviewing portfolio subprojects; and, all KICB staff involved in evaluating credit proposals have attended environmental risk management workshop in 2003 under an EBRD-sponsored technical assistance program.
Location of environmental documents in locally affected community