The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has actually signed a loan contract for approximately USD 75 million with ECOM Agroindustrial Corp Ltd and its group business ECOM Agroindustrial Asia Pte Ltd to support coffee supply chains throughout Asia, JICA stated on Wednesday.
The loan, co-financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), marks JICA’s very first unique working capital loan and intends to enhance cooperation with international farming trading business to support Asia’s farming and food supply chains.
The funding will support steady procurement of coffee from over 60,000 smallholder farmers in India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam, JICA stated in a declaration.
The job consists of purchase funds and seeking advice from services such as coffee accreditation assistance, environment modification adjustment pilot tasks and farming assistance for female farmers.
India’s coffee market represented 3 percent of international production in 2022, ranking 8th around the world, and supplies direct work to over 2 million individuals. About 98 percent of coffee farmers in India are small manufacturers depending on minimal land for growing and unsteady coffee earnings.
The loan lines up with India’s “Doubling Farmers’ Income” objective and matches the G7’s dedication to support the worldwide coffee worth chain, as laid out in the Apulia G7 Leaders’ Communique in June 2024.
“We are honoured to launch JICA’s first exclusive working capital loan with the ECOM Group,” Takehiro Yasui, director general of JICA’s Private Sector Partnership and Finance Department, stated.
“We hope to expand our financing scheme to support supply chain business like this one from now on.”
The job belongs to JICA’s “Facility for Supporting Agricultural Supply Chain and Food Security Enhancement (SAFE)” program, revealed at the G7 Hiroshima Summit in 2023, which has actually USD 1 billion in moneying to deal with worldwide food security obstacles.
