The Albanian Agribusiness and Tourism Support Facility (AATSF) is a project funded and developed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in collaboration and with support from the Albanian Government and partner banks. It started its activities in 2016.
This program aims to motivate Albanian financial institutions to support a vital sector of the Albanian economy with widely untapped potential – agriculture, agribusiness, and tourism.
AATSF consists of two components from which Financial Institutions will benefit:
Financial Support
AATSF provides financing facilities for the agribusiness sector in two ways: credit lines and portfolio risk-sharing for financial institutions.In addition, the institutions benefit from a loss coverage provided by the Albanian Government. AATSF represents an innovative financial instrument to encourage lending by financial institutions throughout the agribusiness value chain, with 10% of the credit value provided as a grant and only 50% of collateral (dedicated to agribusinesses) against the credit value.
Technical Assistance
The ultimate beneficiaries of AATSF are farmers, entrepreneurs, and companies engaged in producing and processing agricultural products, production and trade of agricultural equipment, logistics, agribusiness service providers, and wholesale and retail traders.
Agribusinesses can also benefit from the BERD-supported Small Business Advisory (SBA) program, which provides consultancy on strategy development, marketing, technical restructuring, and other areas of institutional development by international and local experts.
This technical assistance is facilitated by Landmark Communications sh.p.k (Albania) and Colliers Albania consortium.