The biogas investment will enable Baltic Pork to expand its existing pig farm in Allazi and also establish another one at Laubere, east of the capital, Riga. Both pig farms are to be equipped with biogas reactors, which will reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide by some 1500 tonnes per year. The investment will also reduce the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen released to the surrounding rivers and waterways by approximately 20 per cent.
”Our investment will strengthen Baltic Pork’s capital base – a vitally important financial injection at this time when Latvian companies are increasingly finding it difficult to get loans from local banks and other financial institutions to expand their operations. The project also has a positive impact on the environment because it will benefit both the Baltic Sea and the climate”, says NEFCO’s Vice President, Solveig Nordström.
The global financial crisis has affected Latvia’s economy severely. Latvia’s creditworthiness was recently downgraded to category BBB- by the classification institute Standard & Poors. Latvia has received an economic stimulation package of 7.5 billion euros from a group of financers led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The package contains a raft of conditions, which, among others, requires cuts in public expenditure and reduction of the national budget deficit. Given these circumstances, it is vital for international financial institutions to support sustainable development projects, which will alleviate the financial crisis and stimulate the Latvian economy.
An increasing number of companies in Eastern Europe are currently expanding their meat production. This development calls for transfer of environmental technology, such as biogas reactors, in order to reduce the releases of methane from pig and cow manure, for instance. NEFCO is currently planning to finance several biogas reactors in similar projects in Ukraine.
The amount of methane released from agriculture is steadily rising. In 2006, the EU agricultural sector released some 8 million tonnes of methane – the equivalent of 168 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
For more information, please contact:
Solveig Nordström, Vice President, NEFCO, +358 50 5900 428
Karl-Johan Lehtinen, Senior Manager, Environmental Affairs, NEFCO, +358 40 5931 239
Mikael Sjövall, Communications Manager, NEFCO, +358 50 3535 045
NEFCO is an international financial institution owned by the five Nordic countries. NEFCO finances investments and projects in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus, in order to generate positive environmental effects of interest to the Nordic region. NEFCO currently administers funds to a total value of 325 million euros.
