The FINANCIAL — On 29 November the EU-funded European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD) organised an Interagency Forum on “Access to Finance for Cooperatives” in Tbilisi.
Representatives from the Georgian government and the EU, as well as agricultural cooperatives, financial institutions, leasing companies and consulting groups, discussed the challenges and opportunities that cooperatives face when trying to access finance.
According to the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, David Galegashvili: “The last three years in cooperative development can be considered successful, but it is just the beginning. Cooperatives need support to achieve sustainability in the long-run”.
ENPARD-supported cooperatives had indicated that access to credits was the number one constraint for their business development, so participants in the forum were looking for the best ways to solve this problem. Various relevant stakeholders indicated potential ways to overcome this during the event and the forum discussion will be summarised in a communique to be developed in the coming weeks.
The ENPARD programme has been implemented since 2013 and aims to reduce rural poverty in Georgia by providing support to rural and agriculture development, according to EU Neighbours East Info.
