JBIC signs USD 635m project financing for two ACWA Power solar plants in Uzbekistan

Mechanism

JBIC, Japan's state export-credit and outbound-investment finance institution, provided project financing of USD 253 million (Sazagan Solar1) and USD 382 million (Sazagan Solar2) — total USD 635 million — toward two solar-plus-storage projects developed by Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power in Samarkand region, Uzbekistan. Three Japanese trading/utility companies (Sumitomo Corporation, Chubu Electric Power, Shikoku Electric Power) hold equity in the project special-purpose vehicles alongside ACWA Power, which is the mechanism that brings the deal within JBIC's mandate: financing overseas investment by Japanese companies. JBIC co-financed alongside a wide multilateral/commercial syndicate — ADB, EBRD, the Islamic Development Bank, SMBC, Norinchukin Bank, Standard Chartered and KfW IPEX-Bank — with total project financing well above the JBIC tranche alone. Combined capacity is 1,000 MW generation plus 1,336 MWh storage, with a 25-year offtake agreement to JSC National Electric Grid of Uzbekistan; JBIC frames this as its first renewable-energy financing in Uzbekistan.

Severity is set low (2/5): this is state-backed outbound project finance for a foreign power-generation asset, not a trade-restrictive or market-access instrument. It is filed because it extends the register's recurring JBIC pattern — already seen in the Albras aluminum loan, the Petrobras green credit line, the Nippon Sanso/Coregas loan, the MOL LBC tank-terminal loan and the Singapore FSRU loan — of Japan using state-export-credit as an outbound economic-statecraft tool, here to underwrite Japanese utility/trading-house equity positions in Central Asian renewable-energy infrastructure alongside Gulf capital (ACWA Power).

Downstream implications

• Extends the JBIC state-finance cluster into Central Asian renewable

energy, following a string of critical-minerals and resource-security MOUs the register already tracks for Uzbekistan (2025-03-07 national minerals programme, 2025-10-02 Nurlikum uranium JV) — evidence Japan is building a broader outbound-investment footprint in the country beyond minerals.

• Deepens Sumitomo/Chubu Electric/Shikoku Electric equity exposure to

ACWA Power-developed Central Asian energy assets, a template JBIC and these same Japanese utilities have also used in Gulf and Southeast Asian markets.

• Reinforces JBIC's role as an anchor co-financier alongside Western

multilaterals (ADB, EBRD, KfW) in Uzbekistan's renewable buildout, positioning Japan alongside — not competing against — Western development-finance institutions in the country.

Open questions

• Total project cost and the split of the remaining ~USD 950 million in

co-financing across ADB, EBRD, IsDB, SMBC, Norinchukin, Standard Chartered and KfW was not fully itemized in the JBIC release.

• Whether JBIC follows with further Uzbekistan renewable-energy financings

given this is characterized as its first in-country deal.