Restoration of Ukraine, humanitarian demining, investment in the national economy and cooperation in the field of digital and modern technologies. These and other topics were discussed during a video meeting between Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, and Franz Fayot, Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs and Minister of the Economy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
“We are now facing two main tasks: to do everything to win and to start rebuilding Ukraine now, without waiting for the war to end. One of the Government’s main tasks this year is to support the private sector of the economy. This includes programmes to support small and medium-sized enterprises, the manufacturing sector, destroyed businesses in the de-occupied areas, and the introduction of political risk insurance instruments. The Government is introducing the necessary instruments to ensure a favourable business climate and regulatory framework,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
The First Deputy Prime Minister invited the representatives of Luxembourg to take part in the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC23) to be held in London on June 21-22.
“Discussions at the conference will focus on overcoming obstacles to investment and how the Government of Ukraine, with the support of international partners and civil society, plans to advance the necessary reforms. In parallel, we will showcase financial instruments aimed at increasing investor confidence in investing in Ukraine. The UK and Ukrainian governments will encourage other countries to propose private sector initiatives to build investor confidence. We see Luxembourg’s strengths, such as your innovative and modern economic approaches, as a powerful tool to help Ukraine recover from the devastation caused by russian barbarians,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
According to Yuliia Svyrydenko, one of the main challenges in the context of European humanitarian cooperation today is the issue of demining, namely humanitarian demining of agricultural land. According to the World Bank, the full range of humanitarian demining activities could cost $37.4 billion. Preliminary estimates suggest that $1.5 billion is needed just for the immediate needs of survey and priority demining of agricultural land.
New, modern demining equipment is needed to address this problem. Some of this equipment is already in use in Ukraine, but there is a significant additional need.
“We need to provide training for those who will work on the machines that Ukraine is buying for demining. This is very important for us, because without clearing the land, it is impossible to start the process of rebuilding Ukraine. According to the four-year plan, we need to clear 630,000 hectares of land,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.
The parties also discussed the possibilities for Luxembourg to support Ukrainian businesses, war risk insurance and projects that the parties could develop in the form of private partnerships or public-private partnerships.
Franz Fayot said that Luxembourg was interested in cooperation with Ukraine, especially in the field of digital technologies.
In his opinion, Ukraine has great programmers. For the last decade, the global fintech sector has been working with Ukrainian IT specialists. Therefore, the IT is undoubtedly an industry with great potential for cooperation between the two countries. Indeed, Luxembourg has developed a good digital infrastructure over the years.
According to the Luxembourg Minister, there is much to learn from Ukrainian specialists in the field of cybersecurity. During the war, for example, they resisted cyber-attacks by russian hackers.
Luxembourg is ready to cooperate with Ukraine in the space and military sectors. Also, companies from this country are ready to participate in demining in Ukraine.
Franz Fayot pledged to discuss the possibility of providing war risk insurance instruments for investments in Ukraine, as well as to attract to Ukraine a number of agencies and NGOs actively engaged in business microfinance. (Government portal/Business World Magazine)
