The purpose of this Report is threefold:
- To assess the ability of Small and Medium Producers (SMP’s) in Ukraine to access financial services from suppliers of credit.
- To identify constraints that limit SMP’s access to credit, , including constraints that exist within SMP’s themselves, public policy constraints including but not limited to regulations and legislation, primarily Federal (Government of Ukraine) regulations and legislation, and institutional constraints, defined as constraints that exist within and among suppliers of credit.
- To offer conclusions, as well as make specific recommendations that will serve to improve SMP access to credit in the future.
SMP’s in Ukraine, defined for purposes of this report as farming operations of a size of less than 3,000 Hectares (Has.), currently have very limited access to financial services from Ukrainian suppliers of credit, including but not limited to banks.
As charged by the Scope of Work covering this report, included in Appendix A, this report will cover the following:
- Overall conclusions
- Specific conclusions and discussion of conclusions
- Specific recommendations and discussion of recommendations
- Demand for financial services by SMP’s, including:
- Estimated unmet demand for financial services for SMP’s broken down by short-term borrowings (less than 12 months); medium-term borrowings (13 months to 5 years); long-term finance (5 years and greater).
- Credit issues at the SMP level that constrain the ability of SMP’s to obtain access to credit.
- Supply of financial services for SMP’s, including:
- Institutional barriers that may constrain the ability of suppliers of credit to meet the unmet demand of SMP’s, including but not limited to current financial conditions of banks and other suppliers of credit, and the ability to effectively assess SMP credit
- Policy and regulatory constraints, mostly but not exclusively, policies and regulations currently promulgated and enforced by the Govt. of Ukraine (GOU) that, singly or collectively, constrain the ability of suppliers of credit to address the unmet demand.