The FINANCIAL — The EBRD is supporting the development of one of the key sectors of the Belarusian economy, wood-processing, with a seven-year loan of up to €50 million to the particleboard and furniture producer VMG Industry FLLC.
Wood-processing is responsible for over 1.5 percent of Belarus’ GDP and for more than 6.3 per cent of total exports. More than 40 per cent of the Belarusian territory is covered by forests and the wood stock is around 1,5 billion m3. A number of state owned companies and several companies with foreign capital operate in the wood processing sector.
One of the foreign investors is VMG Group of Lithuania, which opened its first production facility in Belarus in 2013. The operations are based in Mogilev, Belarus third largest city where VMG has become one of major employers.
The EBRD loan will support the expansion of VMG through an increase of its production and warehousing area by 27,500 sq. m, in order to accommodate new furniture manufacturing equipment, such as cutting and edge-banding lines, narrow profile wrapping, assembly and packaging lines.
VMG will also install wet electrostatic precipitator for dust and formaldehyde emissions abatement to comply with the EU Industrial Emissions Directive for wood-based panels production.
Since the start of its operations in Belarus in 1992, the EBRD has invested over €2 billion in 95 projects in various sectors of the country’s economy.
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