Page 54 - bne_April 2021_20210401

54 I Eastern Europe bne April 2021
Sergiy Tsivkach recently took over as CEO of UkraineInvest and talked to bne IntelliNews on the sidelines of the German-Ukraine annual investment conference in Berlin.
Ukraine poised for take off
Ben Aris in Berlin
When will Ukraine’s economy reach critical mass and start the virtuous circle of profits, investment, rising wages and ballooning consumption? Of all the countries in the former socialist bloc, Ukraine is one of the last to begin its “catch up” growth spurt, but with a new raft of reforms and the first ever push-back against the oligarchs by the government, the take- off may be close.
UkraineInvest, the government investment promotion agency, has just had an injection of fresh blood as the Zelenskiy administration cranks the handle of the foreign investment engine. Sergiy Tsivkach recently took over as CEO of UkraineInvest and talked to
bne IntelliNews on the sidelines of the German-Ukraine annual investment conference in Berlin on March 19.
“This forum is about aligning Ukraine and German co-operation strategies. It was opened by German Chancellor
www.bne.eu
Angela Merkel, who called on more German companies to invest into Ukraine, and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, as well as including sessions on specific investments,” Tsivkach told bne IntelliNews in
an interview in the locked down German capital.
Germany is an obvious port of call for an Eastern European country looking to raise more foreign direct investment (FDI). It is already the fifth-biggest investor in Ukraine in terms of FDI stock, following the Netherlands, Cyprus, UK and Switzerland.
“But Germany is one of the leaders in terms of ‘real industrial investment’
in Ukraine,” says Tsivkach. “And there are a lot of German companies already operating in Ukraine, including Metro, BASF, KNAUF and others. As of the third quarter of last year the total German FDI stock was €1.9bn.” And as is usual, an early and very large investor has been
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) that has dramatically ramped up its investment activity in the country in the last few years, as part of its work to help develop an attractive investment climate. A
pick up in the EBRD’s activity is usually a harbinger for increasing private investment.
To hammer home the point, EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso was in Kyiv recently and said that state-owned enterprises stand to gain the most from radical reforms.
She told reporters: “The EBRD and Ukraine have been strong partners for almost three decades now. Ukraine is a top-three investment destination for the EBRD. In the past two years alone, the Bank has committed €2bn of investment to the Ukrainian economy. We provide
a comprehensive support package for the country to assist its stabilisation, the anchoring of its reforms and sound,