New energy efficient refrigerator in cafe “Tim&Ko” in Taldykorgan under GEFF program in Kazakhstan

One of the first clients who received a green finance loan under the Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) program from the EBRD was Svetlana Shin, an entrepreneur from the city of Taldykorgan. Svetlana works in public catering, and owns a network of cafes “Tim&Ko”. Her cafe has been operating on the market for more than five years and is popular among residents of the city.

A refrigerator was broken down in one of the cafes, and could not be fixed or repaired. Svetlana has heard from her friends about the opportunity to take a loan provided by the Microfinance organization (MFO) “KMF for household appliances, and also to receive an incentive in the amount of 10% of the purchase cost. Svetlana decided to use this opportunity and upgrade the equipment in her cafe. She contacted the city office of the MFO “KMF”. The loan expert helped her to select the refrigerator from Green Technology Selector that complied both with the minimum performance criteria of the GEFF program, and the customer’s requirements. Through the use of the loan, she has bought a refrigerator from a famous Korean producer and installed it in her cafe. She provided relevant documents for a verification check of the intended use of funds and received an incentive in the amount of 10% of the refrigerator cost in three weeks.

“Everything was done very quickly, easily, and without any difficulties”, says Svetlana.

This project was supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance.