BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 20. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is cooperating with the government of Azerbaijan to introduce innovative financing instruments to grow agriculture in the country, Rana Karadsheh, Regional Director of IFC for Europe, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
"IFC, through its Agricultural Financing Project, implemented in partnership with SECO, has supported local financial institutions in launching value-chain financing products and helped the selected value chains on strawberry and hazelnut crops increase their competitiveness in export markets. Value chain financing was an important step to enable farmers to access finance without real estate collateral and with strong trust in crops exported to Gulf or European markets," she said.
Karadsheh noted that IFC is cooperating with the government of Azerbaijan to introduce innovative financing instruments to grow agriculture in Azerbaijan and connect smaller farmers to global value chains.
"These instruments are crop receipts, which allow farmers to obtain pre-harvest finance against a promise to produce a certain quantity of crops, and warehouse receipts (post season financing), which can be used to provide financing in the form of short-term loans or guarantees. The government, farmers, financial institutions, and other players see the benefits, and there are draft laws at the consultation stage to enable these instruments," added the IFC regional director.