OREANDA-NEWS. January 28, 2010. In 2009, the loans extended by Russian Agricultural Bank grew by one third and amounted to RUR 445 billion. In the framework of the Federal Program on Agribusiness Development 2008-2012 the Bank extended loans totaling RUR 340 billion. By year end 2009 the total loan portfolio of RusAg well exceeded RUR 600 billion, reported the press-centre of RusAg.

Within the period of implementation of the National Priority Project and the Federal Program on Agribusiness Development RusAg has contributed to 1,840 investment projects. Since 2008, the total amount of loans extended for investment purposes has reached RUR 122 billion, including RUR 85 billion for construction of new animal-breeding farms and RUR 36 billion for reconstruction of existing farms.

One of the priorities of the Federal Program is technical and technological modernization of the agribusiness of Russia. In 2009, RusAg extended over 3 thousand loans exceeding RUR 16 billion for that purpose.

RusAg continues to extend loans to personal household plots owners. Since 2006, the Bank has extended over 534 thousand of such loans totaling RUR 83 billion, including in 2009 – over 113 thousand loans exceeding RUR 20 billion. In 2009, the Bank also extended some 6 thousand loans totaling RUR 14.5 billion to farmers and 1 thousand loans totaling RUR 5 billion to agricultural consumer cooperatives. For social support of rural areas in 2009 RusAg extended 76 thousand loans to the total amount of RUR 10 billion.

RusAg remains the leading financial institution in lending to Russian agribusiness.