European and international partners have not reached an agreement on a specific investment vehicle that would be used to channel capital to rebuild Ukraine, at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2024 (URC 2024) held in Berlin last week, a spokeswoman for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) told IPE.
One of the goals of the conference was to discuss, and possibly come to an agreement on, vehicles that could be available to investors, including institutional investors, to rebuild Ukraine.
The German government has sought to set up an equity capital fund to finance large-scale projects in key sectors in Ukraine, including energy, infrastructure, industry and the agricultural sector, and open to institutional investors’ capital.
Germany is supporting a number of different funds for Ukraine, for example the Horizon Capital Growth Fund, the Green for Growth, and the European Fund for South-Eastern Europe, the BMZ spokeswoman said.
“All of these funds are open to both institutional and public investors. Furthermore, we strongly support the Ukrainian Business Development Fund promoting improved access to finance for SMEs,” the spokeswoman added.
Partners at the conference, including 17 development institutions and international organisations, launched the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) Resilience Alliance for Ukraine, deploying more than €7bn in capital, including €4.5bn for new programmes, according to the BMZ.
The alliance aims to support SMEs, the backbone of Ukraine’s economy, by reforming domestic policies, transforming the Ukrainian Business Development Fund into a sound and solid Ukrainian development finance institution for economic recovery, and providing financing for SMEs, it added.
The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine introduced an Investment Guide at the conference, prepared in partnership with the Kyiv School of Economics and the biggest accounting firms, highlighting 95 investment projects in the country worth more than $27bn.
“To catch up with EU countries in terms of GDP per capita, Ukraine needs investments or technology transfers of $10-30bn per year over the next decade. War is not an embargo on investment,” Yuliia Svyrydenko, first deputy prime minister and minister of economy of Ukraine, said.
Foreign investors contributed with $4.25bn last year to support the Ukraine’s economy, exceeding the amounts deployed in 2016-2017.
“We must continue to increase this figure,” Svyrydenko added.
At this year’s URC 2024, the European Commission announced the launch of a first dedicated call to international financial institutions to mobilise support to equity funds for investments in Ukraine.
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