Soufflet ECA The Project involves providing a multi-country A-Loan of up to 60 million   - including IFC current exposure   -     to Soufflets Eastern Europe and Central Asia operations. The Project will mainly support Soufflet in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, while a small portion of the facility (up to 10 million) will also be used for Soufflets operations in Serbia and Romania. It will support Soufflets strategy to increase its presence and grow in ECA.   Soufflet will use the proceeds of the IFC Loan to: (i) originate wheat, barley and other cereals; (ii) increase in-kind prefinancing to farmers and procurement of alternative grains and oilseeds; (iii) process grain into malt; and, (iv) support trading operations. The Loan will be committed as a 4-year A-Loan with a revolver feature, to match working capital cycles.  In 2009/2010, Soufflet originated almost half a million metric tons (mt) of grain in these five countries, where the Company owns 4 silos. Soufflet also owns and operates 5 malting plants in the region that sold 377,000 mt of malt in 2009/2010. With a stabilized source of funds, Soufflet is expected to increase its origination volumes. This would in turn help the Company scale up its presence in the region, develop its input supply and farmers prefinancing, and diversify its procurement of grain beyond malting barley, which would ensure a better capacity utilization of its silos. This additional financing will also provide a buffer against the volatility of grain prices. Project is to secure the working capital needs of a large regional player in the grain/oilseed/malt sector in five countries in a challenging economic context. The Project supports the long term strategic commitment of Soufflet to the region, where it expects to expand its activities in in-kind prefinancing of farmers (in the form of inputs), procurement of grains and oilseeds, storage and logistic services, malt processing and international trading.    - SMEs, farmers, and employment. The Project will also carry significant benefits for Soufflets partners. In particular, employment and number of farmers reached are expected to grow. Most farms in the region are fairly large and provide substantial employment in rural areas. In addition, Soufflets activities also support many MSMEs (e.g. independent elevators, importers of inputs, transportation companies, security, catering, cleaning, maintenance, etc), which further reinforces the Companys direct impact on the local economy.    - Upgrading of storage/logistics infrastructure. Soufflet has acquired and developed 210,000mt of grain storage capacity in the five countries. These facilities were usually poorly maintained, inefficient because of bottlenecks at various stages of loading and unloading, and were not operated at standards of safety applied to the Companys facilities in other countries. The Company has engaged into a multiyear improvement program that frees usable capacity, eliminates bottlenecks and upgrades the standards of operation to internationally accepted levels. This will in turn improve the quality of services to local farmers and local residents. This also provides a benchmark for the operation of competing elevators in the region.  - Building more competitive markets. Storage and drying capacity in inland elevators remains limited relative to the current production levels, which provides better negotiating power to elevator operators. Soufflets expansion of its presence and higher standards of operation will provide valuable competition in this underserved market.     - Agricultural productivity improvements. Soufflet has a staff of agronomists whose primary mission was to ensure adequate agronomic practices for the production of high quality malting barley. As the Company expands its procurement towards other grains and oilseeds, this expertise is being redeployed to ensure that a package of inputs, prefinancing, agronomic advice, storage and marketing services is available to local farmers to improve productivity and strengthen their partnership with Soufflet.    - Strengthening rural economic development. Soufflets operations generate significant economic opportunities for rural communities in terms of employment as well as linkages to MSMEs.