International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, plans to provide a credit line of up to $35 million to Ukraine's Astarta agro-industrial holding, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, to replenish its working capital to buy soybeans and process it.

IFC said that its board of directors made the decision on July 20.

The project will help Astarta to ensure financing of working capital to accumulate soybeans in the harvesting period when farmers have the largest soybean stocks and prices are low as a rule.

Astarta would produce soybean meal, butter and husk, creating products with higher added value. The rest of the soybean purchases will be financed using company funds,

As reported, Astarta agroindustrial holding has put a modern bio-energy complex in Hlobyne (Poltava region) into operation.

Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding comprising five regional divisions in Poltava, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, and Kharkiv regions. It is composed of nine sugar factories, agricultural farms with a land bank of about 245,000 hectares, and dairy farms.