Mr. Vitaliy Bigdai, export promotion head of the program of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, and mr. David L. Coles, a senior adviser from the USAID E&E office also delivered their speeches for the guests at the venue organized by UkraineInvest at the premises of UnitFactory in Kyiv on November 6, 2017.
Daniel Bilak reminded that UkraineInvest started work on November 1, 2016 as a small team assigned with ambitious and complex tasks to work in three directions at once. The first was to change a perception of Ukraine by foreign companies from the "Three Cs" (Chornobyl, Corruption, and Conflict) to the idea of "innovations and opportunities" awaiting those who support the reforms and help strengthen the economy right at the moment.
In the beginning it was very difficult to sell on Ukraine as a whole, as we possess a really complex brand. But during the work we realized what exactly to offer investors and what to focus on, told Daniel Bilak. UkraineInvest has developed a strategy of targeting "4 + 1" sectors, that is focusing on key sectors of the economy ─ agribusiness, energy (renewables mainly), manufacturing and infrastructure. And for sure, the innovative technologies that allow modernization of all these sectors.
We found that foreign investors welcome such an approach wondering by still available huge potential of agribusiness in Ukraine as before, said Daniel Bilak. They are interested in projects of solar and wind power plants, production of energy from biomass and waste along with opportunities in modernization of the available infrastructure of ports, roads and the railways system. A separate topic is manufacturing clusters in the regions that attract new investors for the production of auto parts, aerospace, textile, furniture and pharmaceutical industries.
As of present, UkraineInvest has been promoting automotive and IT groups in Western Ukraine, a woodworking cluster in Zhytomyr region, agro-industrial and port logistics in the Mykolayiv and Kherson regions, energy and manufacturing clusters in the south and east of Ukraine.
At the same time, UkraineInvest devotes much time to work on improvement of the investment climate in Ukraine along with continuous communication with existing and potential investors. The work goes on structural changes in the legislative field aiming at simplification of conducting business in Ukraine and preventing corruption. This part is done in close cooperation with the government commissioner for investment, Oksana Markarova.
As announced, Ukraine rose to 76th place in Doing Business ranking (+ 4 positions) showing the greatest progress in the Doing Business ranking of all countries of the former Soviet Union. The index of investment attractiveness of Ukraine is now the highest for the last 6 years, that is 3.15 of 5. Business expectations survey of enterprises show the biggest confidence in Q3/2017 since the highest mid-2013.
This is an extremely complex area of work that requires constant attention and tremendous efforts. It is so because changes are required not only and not so much in the regulatory framework as in the attitudes between business and government, business and law enforcement agencies, business and the tax administration, that is, business and the system at large, explained Daniel Bilak. Many problems have been solved, and those decisions taken for resolving the issues allow us to speak about positive changes in the country and hope for the future growth of investments. If an investor who has been working in Ukraine for many years, after dealing with us, decides not only to continue working here but also to expand the business and build several more factories: it means we are doing our job well.
UkraineInvest helped to unlock more than USD 650mln of investments for productive use by helping and solving those problematic issues faced by investors who already worked in Ukraine, told David L. Coles from USAID. UkraineInvest managed to form a list of more than a thousand of existing and potential new investors whose total investment potential is over USD 1bn.
The head of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund Export Promotion Program Vitaliy Bigdai emphasized that WNISEF has been supporting SMEs in Ukraine and Moldova for more than 20 years.
As a result, WNISEF understands the systemic problems that impede the development of entrepreneurship and restrain the economic growth of these two countries. One of such systemic problems is the weakness or lack of effective organizations and structures that manage attraction and support of investments. We believe that Ukraine can realize its economic opportunities through deep integration into the world economic system. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop and implement effective instruments for attracting investments. We know that similar functions for attracting investments in the world are usually performed by specialized agencies. That is why we responded to the appeal of the Government of Ukraine to support the creation of Investment Promotion Office UkraineInvest under the Prime Minister of Ukraine. We are pleasantly surprised by the results that together with the team UkraineInvest and colleagues in the government managed to achieve over the past year in this area and we hope that the next year will be no less successful, told Vitaliy Bigdai
Daniel Bilak noted, for his part, that several new major investment projects in the field of automotive, energy and infrastructure could be announced by the end of this year too.
Unfortunately, making investment decisions implies a long-term perspective. So, in fact, this money will not come to us tomorrow, but they are really big investors who will create new jobs, bring new standards of business and corporate culture, and, what is more important, their example will show that Ukraine is very perspective country for investment, said Daniel Bilak.
This very idea has served as a background for video promotion of Ukraine Now: Innovation and Opportunity, which was presented during the meeting.
REFERENCE NOTE
Investment Promotion Office of UkraineInvest was established on October 19, 2016. The purpose of its work is to increase the volume of direct foreign investment in Ukraine by cooperation with investors who want to enter the market of Ukraine.
Daniel Bilak, the director of UkraineInvest is the chief investment adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine. Oksana Markarova, the government commissioner for investments, coordinates the work of the office and the government. Private equity fund Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) provides financing for UkraineInvest. As of present, UkraineInvest has one regional office in Ivano-Frankivsk too. Its activities cover seven regions of Western Ukraine ─ Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, TransCarpathian, Lviv, Rivne and Chernivtsi regions.
