Page 36 - GEORptJun18

8.5 Fixed income
8.5.1 Fixed income - bond news
Microfinance institution Crystal’s bonds admitted to Georgian Stock Exchange
Kutaisi-based microfinance organisation JSC MFO Crystal’s GEL10mn (€3.5mn) two-year bonds were admitted to the Georgian Stock Exchange on May 17.
Crystal made its debut bond issue in December 2017, which was the first local currency bond offering in Georgia’s microfinance sector. The firm said at the time of the issue that it planned to list the bonds on the local exchange.
The bonds, which mature on December 28, 2019, have been admitted to the exchange’s category B listing under the ticker #CRS01J , the Georgian Stock Exchange a nnounced .
Crystal’s main focus is on micro entrepreneurs and farmers living and working in regions and remote areas, with just under 29% of its portfolio extended to borrowers outside urban areas as of 2017. It has 50 regional branches across eight Georgian regions. As of 2017 its loan portfolio amounted to around GEL150mn.
It offers a range of financial services to micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), loans to the agricultural sector, housing and consumption loans, as well as currency exchange services, remittance handling and other financial services such as utility payments.
9.0 Industry & Sectors 9.1 Sector news
9.1.1 Oil & gas sector news
Azerbaijan on May 29 inaugurated the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor at the Sangchal terminal. The corridor’s interconnected pipeline projects are designed to supply natural gas to Turkey and southern Europe. Southern Gas Corridor will run to Turkey via Georgia and can help Europe diversify its gas supplies away from over-reliance on Russia. The pipeline projects, involving $40bn of investment, are to supply about 6bn cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year to Turkey and, by the first quarter of 2020, a further 10 bcm a year to Europe. The Southern Gas Corridor is to be formed by the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) and Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) running from Azerbaijan to Georgia to Turkey and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), reaching Italy through Greece and Albania. It will give Azerbaijan the opportunity to establish more vital hard currency revenues by exploiting its giant Shah Deniz gas field in the south of the Caspian Sea. The key objective is to sell gas on the Western European market. The TANAP construction project was launched in March 2015. Shah Deniz Stage 2, or Full Field Development (FFD), which TANAP will capitalise on following development work by BP, is a giant project set to add 16bn cubic metres per year (bcma) of gas production to the approximately 10 bcma produced by
36 GEORGIA Country Report June 2018
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