site.btaBulgarian Development Bank Can Be Bulgaria's Green Bank, Says Executive Director
During the Green Week 2023 forum in Sofia on Wednesday, Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) Executive Director Tsanko Arabadjiev said that the BDB can and should be the green bank of Bulgaria.
Arabadjiev outlined two problems - insufficient number of green projects and lack of sufficient funding. He noted that businesses still don't know how to prepare green projects.
Arabadjiev pointed out that with technical assistance from the European Investment Bank (EIB), the BDB is working to build internal capacity and a comprehensive framework for sustainable finance, which includes rewriting the bank's policies and procedures, training employees to generate and evaluate green transition projects. He said that the aim is for BBR to be a hub that will train businesses on how to do such projects.
"With the help of the EIB, we are about to finalize a new loan agreement in the amount of BGN 350 million," said Arabadjiev. He added that this is a resource that the BDB will have at its disposal in the next month or two.
"At first glance, there is enough financing on the market, but purely on a market principle, market participants are selecting projects with the least amount of risk and the greatest return. At some point it comes to the question of who will finance the slightly riskier projects, the longer-term projects, and I believe that this is where the role of the BDB is, attracting private capital, taking on some of the inherent risk for other banks, to make it so that sustainable projects to be able to be financed," said Arabadjiev.
/RY/
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