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repatriation of capital.
"We have now drafted a new program called “Investment Nanny.” What is it about? We will provide each investor, each large company, which invests in Ukraine $100mn or more, with a separate contract with the state. It is the state that will protect you. You will have a manager – an investment nanny - who speaks five languages and works with you 24/7 - any question, any problem will be solved in contact with this manager, and there will be no problem," Zelenskiy said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22.
The second proposal from the Ukrainian authorities is to give tax holidays to those willing to join the big privatization process in Ukraine. "We ensure tax holidays to all investors willing to engage in large-scale privatization worth $10mn or more - you will not pay income tax for five years," the presidential media office quoted him as saying.
2.2 Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine sacks head of Ukrzaliznytsia
Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the dismissal of Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railway) CEO Yevhen Kravtsov on January 29 and will hold a competition to find a replacement.Kravtsov was formally sacked in November when the company was accused of failing to fight “wild corruption.”
"Today we have approved the dismissal of the head of Ukrzaliznytsia. It is an important step towards the reboot of such a big state company," Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksiy Honcharuk said at a press briefing as cited by Interfax Ukraine.
According to an Interfax source, the supervisory board considered two options: to transfer Kravtsov to a job at the Infrastructure Ministry or to put the job under a supervisory board.
"Corruption at Ukrzaliznytsia continues. It is absolutely wild there. They [employees] steal from almost everything, and where is the roof on this thing?" the PM said in in November. "We will make personnel decisions in the near future, because it is impossible to continue working the way they work now." While the company is in profit those profits are expected to fall this year. The net of Ukrzaliznytsia was estimated at UAH2.5bn-3bn ($100mn-120mn) for 2019, Kravtsov said last week. However, Ukrzaliznytsia forecasts a 61% year-on-year drop to UAH1.3bn ($54mn) in 2020 the company said in November.
Ukrzaliznytsia is currently the focus of a large reform plan and said last year it needs to spend billions of dollars on an upgrade.
The company said last year it would order up to 40 new diesel locomotives from General Electric (GE US), the company said on August 12. Kravtsov said that the new batch of locomotives could be ordered in late 2019 or early 2020, depending on GE’s order backlog.
The purchase is part of the company’s $36bn planned modernisation programme and was made possible after it issued a $500mn Eurobond in July
6 UKRAINE Country Report February 2020 www.intellinews.com
