A group of professionals not representing government officials intend to draw up a list of possible investment projects in Ukraine worth $150 billion. The projects could be implemented in Ukraine in the coming 15-20 years, former head of the Presidential Administration and head of the National Investment Council Borys Lozhkin has said.
“There are no large investment projects in the country. Ministries and state-run companies cannot even get projects worth $10 billion, while we need $150 billion for the next 15 or 20 years. These figures are realistic”, he said at the third Orchestrators of Change Directors forum.
He said that one of the largest international funds with assets of over $500 billion under management had expressed its readiness to invest $1-3 billion in Ukraine. The fund asked to present projects worth $20 billion to select some. It was found out that the country does not have such projects.
Lozhkin said that he ordered a group of ‘non-government’ people to prepare the list of projects in the sectors, including revised projects proposed by ministries.
He said that the Ukrainian energy sector could spend $50-70 billion of investment in the coming 20 years, and infrastructure and agriculture – $30-40 billion each.
He said that these were projects worth over $100 million and better if they were $300-500 million, as efforts spent on the projects worth $5 billion or $100 million were the same.
Lozhkin said that foreign direct investment (FDI) was the main hope for Ukraine’s exploding growth.
“$1 billion of FDI is around 1% of GDP growth. If they have them worth $6-8 billion, it would be 6-8% of GDP growth and a multiplier – we can reach 10% of growth a year. Then the values would change quicker”, he said.
MHP Board Chairman Yuriy Kosiuk said that Ukraine was not ready for large investments, as there was a large risk of losing it. The process should be gradual, he said. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)
