AKIPRESS.COM - The World Bank Group is helping Uzbek banks improve agri-financing operations and offer better and more diversified financial services to local farms and agri-businesses.

As part of this effort, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, today is conducting a two-day workshop for Hamkorbank’s representatives. The event focuses on practical aspects of agri-leasing operations and includes sessions on financial analysis of agri-leasing contracts and risks associated with agri-leasing deals.

Agriculture plays an important role in Uzbekistan’s economy, where half of the population lives in rural areas and depends on farming or food production for their livelihoods. Despite the significant financing needs of farmers and agri-businesses, the financial sector lacks the necessary skills and tools to serve this sizable market.

This initiative is part of the joint World Bank-IFC Finance & Markets Global Practice’s Central Asia Agri-finance Project, which aims to develop a set of agri-financing tools and training programs for financial institutions, aggregators, and farmers in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The project is supported by funds from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance.

The Finance & Markets Global Practice aims to help countries build deep, diversified, inclusive, efficient and stable financial systems which are essential to promoting economic growth and reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity. The practice is committed to delivering public and private sector tailored solutions to development challenges by leveraging the whole range of the Bank Group's financial, knowledge/advisory and convening services for clients.