Triodos Bank launches Sustainable Trade Fund
22 February 2008 - Today, Triodos Bank is launching the Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund at the international organic farming trade fair in Nurenberg, Germany. The Fund will provide trade finance to certified organic and Fair Trade producers in developing countries and emerging markets, and thus increase their access to export markets.
The Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund will start with a portfolio of EUR 10 million, which will be used to finance more than 20 organisations in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
Growing market opportunities
Marilou van Golstein Brouwers, Managing Director of Triodos Investment Management: ‘The market for organic and Fair Trade products in Europe and the United States has shown double-digit growth for many years now. A development which offers excellent sales opportunities for small-scale farmers and producers in developing countries. The growth in these sales, however, is being restricted by the limited access to finance. Finance that is particularly essential at harvest time, the first phase of the production cycle, so that farmers can be paid immediately on delivery of their products. If export cooperatives are able to pay farmers immediately, they will be able to benefit from the high prices associated with organic and Fair Trade certification. It will make it possible for the cooperatives to build up a healthy, long-term relationship with their farmers, and in addition to organic farming training programs, to offer healthcare and educational services as well.’
With the Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund, Triodos Bank will be one of the few worldwide providers of this type of trade finance in developing countries. Van Golstein Brouwers: ‘Via the microfinance funds Triodos-Doen, Hivos-Triodos Fund, and Triodos Fair Share Fund, we already have more than 10 years' experience with this specific form of financing. This expertise will now be bundled in the Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund, giving us a strong platform from which to expand our role as financier in this growing market, and to provide a major impulse for sustainable trade.’
Structure and partners of the Fund
The Triodos Sustainable Trade Fund is a non-profit organisation and is financed by a credit facility from the Triodos Bank covered by guarantors. Many of these guarantors are institutional parties who see this as a way to make a contribution to the promotion of sustainable trade. The launch of the Fund has been made possible in part by the support of the Dutch development organisation Hivos.
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