ADFIAP, represented by its consulting group led by Ms. Corazon D. Conde and Atty. Alberto B. Reyno, met with officials of the Responsible Business Fund (RBF) and several banks on May 16-17, 2018 in Yangon, Myanmar to introduce the blended finance scheme there.

The first meeting was with Ms. Amamath Reddy, Team Leader of RBF, which is part of the Danish Development Assistance to Myanmar. RBF provides partial grants to SMEs in Myanmar for the implementation of innovative projects in seven (7) eligible areas, namely: (1) energy efficiency, (2) water use efficiency, (3) waste treatment and recycling, (4)occupational safety and health, (5) food safety, (6) managerial and supervisory skills, and (7) practical and technical skills. RBF Myanmar can provide grants of 65%-85% of the project cost or MMK 40M to MMK 80M to SMEs to provide them an incentive to demonstrate best practices to the rest of the Myanmar business community.

The ADFIAP mission also met with representatives from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Spakassenstiftung fur internationale Kooperation to explore complementation and partnership, particularly on capacity-building to enrich the present course curriculum and to avoid duplication of topics. Meetings were also held with officials of Small and Medium Industrial Development Bank (SMIDB), A Bank, Co-operative Bank, KBZ Bank, Myanmar Citizens Bank as well as the Myanmar Banks Association (MBA) and the Myanmar Institute of Banking.

ADFIAP is a project partner of the EU-funded Switch Asia project, “SMEs for Accountability, Responsibility and Transparency (SMART) Myanmar 2.0”, whose role is to enable SMEs to access to financing for their green investments. The 4-year EU-funded project is aimed at improving production and increase consumption of sustainably produced garments from Myanmar through up-scaling and improving on best practice mechanisms developed and implemented during SMART Myanmar 1.0. For more information on the SMART Myanmar project, please click this weblink: https://www.smartmyanmar.org.