EBRD Funds ABN-MB Group With €6m As Uzbekistan Food-Service Leader Expands And Invests In Solar Power And Energy-Efficient Technologies

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is helping strengthen competition in Uzbekistan’s food-service market through new support for ABN-MB Group, a well-known company that operates several restaurant and coffee-shop brands across the country. The Bank’s financing aims to boost the Group’s ability to expand, modernise its operations and reduce its dependence on imported food ingredients.

The EBRD is providing a loan of up to €6 million to support the Group’s capital expansion programme. The investment will be used to purchase specialist food-production equipment and to build a new production and warehousing complex. Once completed, this facility will double the company’s centralised food-production capacity, improve operational efficiency and allow the Group to localise more stages of its food-processing activities. By producing more ingredients domestically, the company will be better positioned to manage costs and respond faster to growing consumer demand.

The expansion will also be supported by blended concessional finance of up to €70,000 through the EBRD’s Finance and Technology Transfer Centre for Climate Change (FINTECC) programme. FINTECC provides incentives that encourage businesses to adopt energy-saving and climate-friendly technologies. ABN-MB Group plans to use this additional funding to purchase energy-efficient machinery, install insulation materials that improve temperature control and set up solar panels to reduce reliance on traditional energy sources.

The project also benefits from the Japan-EBRD Cooperation Fund, which contributes to initiatives that foster sustainable private-sector development in the Bank’s regions. To date, the EBRD has invested nearly US$ 6.9 billion (€5.8 billion) in Uzbekistan through 205 projects, with the majority of its financing directed toward supporting private entrepreneurs. Uzbekistan has been the largest recipient of EBRD funding in Central Asia for six consecutive years, reflecting the Bank’s long-term commitment to backing the country’s economic growth and diversification.