EBRD Finds Investor for Belorusian Cement Plant

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is in negotiations with an international company interested in privatizing the Krasnoselsky Cement Plant. The plant is owned by Krasnoselskstroymaterialy — part of the state-owned Belarusian Cement Company. Cement and Its Applications contacted the company’s representatives and they confirmed the fact of negotiations with a foreign investor to the journal.

Krasnoselskstroymaterialy is the largest producer of building materials in the Republic of Belarus and encompasses a cement plant (1.6 million tpa), dry mix production, building lime, fine-grained chalk, aerocrete, asbestos-cement sheets, and pipes.

“We are actively discussing the cement plant now and there really is an international investor ready to keep employees, increase production volumes, and take investment step by step,” says Head of Belarus Resident Office of EBRD Alexander Pivovarsky, as quoted by the central state news agency BELTA.

EBRD believes that privatization in Belarus can be carried out without loss, and there are examples. Alexander Pivovarsky doesn’t see it as a solution to all problems but considers the support of EBRD to be beneficial to the country.

Krasnoselskstroymaterialy, along with the Belarusian Cement Plant and Krichevcementnoshifer, is now managed by the Belarusian Cement Company. Krasnoselsky plant produces products in a dry way.

At the end of 2014, the state covered a debt of 129 million dollars the three plants owed to Chinese investors who modernized enterprises. In September 2019, the State Control Committee of the Republic of Belarus announced that financial assistance the state provided to cement plants has not yet paid off.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the largest institutional investor in the Belarusian economy. Since 1992, EBRD has invested 2.7 billion euros in 119 projects in the country.