According to Danilo Hetmantsev, Chair of the Tax Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, the majority of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ukraine in 2023 — 71.6% — was reinvested earnings by foreign investors operating in the country. This amounted to $2.38 billion, a 30% decrease compared to the previous year.
Hetmantsev attributed the decline to the easing of foreign exchange restrictions by the National Bank of Ukraine in the second half of the year. These included relaxed rules on cross-border transfers and dividend repatriation, which may have contributed to the lower reinvestment rate.
He also noted a significant reduction in the use of debt instruments, primarily due to decreased obligations to foreign investors, including affiliated companies, mostly in the form of trade credits.
As a result, Ukraine’s total stock of accumulated FDI decreased by 0.7%, or $0.38 billion, to $54.57 billion by the end of 2023. This figure is 17% lower than in 2021 — the year before Russia’s full-scale invasion — when the total stood at $65.75 billion.
Hetmantsev also highlighted that Ukraine’s per capita FDI stock remains significantly lower than that of Central and Eastern European countries. For example, Poland — which had a comparable population to Ukraine before the war — reported an FDI stock of $335.5 billion in 2023, roughly six times higher than Ukraine’s.
