The company’s shareholding structure is as follows:

- National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan (NBU) 35%
- Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) 35%
- European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) 15%
- International Finance Corporation (IFC) 15%.

The start-up phase of Uzbek Leasing was largely supported by Maybank. Since 2002 the company has been one of the beneficiaries of the IFC Leasing Advisory Program in Central Asia and has further strengthened its operational capacity. The Leasing Advisory Program in Central Asia is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.

The proposed project involves a loan of up to $3.0 million with a five-year maturity to Uzbek Leasing to expand its SME leasing portfolio.

30.0 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	30.0
Equity

* These investment figures are indicative

Uzbek Leasing conducts leasing operations in all regions of Uzbekistan both urban and rural from its office in Tashkent.

The proposed project is expected to promote further private sector development in Uzbekistan through strengthening the leasing sector by helping develop key players in the sector and supporting private SMEs by providing much needed longer term financing in foreign currency to procure equipment.

Longer term funding:

Through this proposed credit, IFC would play an important developmental role by providing Uzbek Leasing with additional longer term resources for originating leases for SMEs, thereby ensuring the company’s further growth, lease portfolio diversification and help it become a more sustainable institution while supporting the Uzbek private SME sector.

Catalyzing Growth of Leasing:

By providing term funding to enable Uzbek Leasing to expand its leasing operations, IFC is helping to catalyze the growth of the leasing sector that provides alternative funding and key to employment generation.

Promotion of Environmental and Social Standards of Excellence:

IFC being global leader for sustainable environmental and social practices, continues to be positioned well to help Uzbek Leasing develop further in this regard as part of the lease approval and supervision process, thereby catalyzing industry improvements in Uzbekistan.

As an existing IFC client Uzbek Leasing has developed social and environmental risk management guidelines. As this project is being reviewed under IFC''s revised Environmental & Social (E&S) Review Procedure IFC will review theses guidelines and propose supplemental actions, if needed. Uzbek Leasing will be required to:

- Maintain or revise if needed its existing procedures prior to disbursement to ensure that all its investments are screened and processed to avoid supporting activities on the IFC FI exclusion list and to ensure that the use of the leased equipment complies with the applicable National laws;
- Continue to appoint qualified persons to manage and implement the procedure;
- Demonstrate commitment and resources to implementing the procedure ;
- When leasing to business activities with potentially significant environmental and social risks (e.g., mining, oil production), review E&S information available in the public domain and avoid leasing to businesses that have substantial unresolved environmental and social issues. In such cases, the company will also need to satisfy itself that the activity is being undertaken in compliance with the applicable national laws;
- Continue to submit a periodic report to IFC as per a format to be provided by IFC.