The new head of the Ministry for Strategic Industries should relaunch the agency and transform it to meet the needs of the country at war. This was stated by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, during the introduction of the newly appointed Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin to the ministry’s staff.
“We are confident that we will win this war. And now we have a new window of opportunity. We have to develop the domestic Military Tech sector. Indeed, Ukraine cannot always rely solely on the weapons of its allies. The domestic defence industry is a priority for the President and the Government, both now and after the war is over. After all, in today’s wars, the winner is the one with the most advanced weapons. Oleksandr Kamyshin has shown outstanding leadership qualities while heading Ukrzaliznytsia, and now he faces a new challenge – to change the approaches to the work of the Ministry for Strategic Industries and do everything possible to provide the Army with Ukrainian-made weapons as soon as possible,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
Yuliia Svyrydenko also thanked Pavlo Riabikin, the former head of the ministry, for his work.
One of the first tasks for the new head of the Ministry for Strategic Industries will be the reform of Ukroboronprom, which involves reorganising the state-owned concern into a joint-stock company. The aim of the reform is to create a joint-stock company, Ukrainian Defence Industry, with 100% of its shares owned by the state, and to approve the company’s charter and provisions for the supervisory board of the joint-stock company.
The creation of a legal successor to the Ukroboronprom State Concern in the form of a joint-stock company will facilitate the introduction of a corporate governance model in the defence industry, in line with the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. This will also create preconditions for increasing the competitiveness of defence industry enterprises and facilitate investment in the defence industry. (Government portal/Business World Magazine)