IV International Forum " Ukrainian Business Day" in Poland

On May 12, 2016, the IV International Forum “UKRAINIAN BUSINESS DAY” attended by over 200 representatives of business, government, local authorities and financial institutions from Poland and Ukraine took place in Warsaw, Poland.

The forum was held with support of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Ministry of Development of the Republic of Poland and under the patronage of the Embassy of Poland in Ukraine and the Embassy of Ukraine in Poland.

The forum was organized by the Ukrainian Business Association in Poland, International Legal Center EUCON, Polish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce, and International Audit Union.

Opening the forum, the President of Ukrainian Business Association in Poland Yaroslav Romanchuk focused not only on the results of the last two years of economic cooperation between Ukraine and Poland, but also expressed his expectations for the nearest future. Some of the Polish investment projects designed for implementation in the Ukrainian market are now frozen. Thus, 2016-2017 may be illustrative in terms of revitalization of Polish investment in Ukraine.

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland Andrii Deshchytsia drew attention to the fact that the economic interest in Ukraine is growing, as evidenced by the increased number of participants of the forum, doubled number of flights between the countries, etc. He also mentioned that the Ukrainian-Polish Intergovernmental Commission, which was inactive for several years due to reformatting of the government, will hold its meeting in the next few months.

Andrii Demchuk, Director of the Department for Attracting Investments at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, spoke about the role of the Ministry in promoting sustainable economic development of Ukraine in cooperation with external partners. He mentioned that one of his main missions on the forum is to promote the meeting of the intergovernmental commission.

The participants of the forum also witnessed signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ukrainian Business Association in Poland and the International Society of Polish Entrepreneurs in Ukraine aimed at launching a new phase in supporting Ukrainian business when entering the EU market through the jurisdiction of Poland.

Special attention was focused on transport sector of Ukraine. Famous Polish top manager Wojciech Balchun who is to lead Ukrzaliznytsia said in his speech that this new assignment is a tremendous professional challenge for him. Ukrainian government places high hopes on him, and Wojciech Balchun assured the participants that he will do his best to meet the expectations.

Director of Ukrzaliznytsia Vitalii Mihanchuk agreed that the process is going to be difficult. Moreover, it is expected that Ukrzaliznytsia must provide 6.7% of GDP in 2016.

Participants of the forum also found out from the manager of GPA in UA Oleksii Mykhailychenko about the successful launch of the public procurement reform in Ukraine. Previously procurement system included a considerable “corruption” component, but now the situation has changed, largely due to the spread of PROZORRO public eProcurement system. According to Mr. Mykhailychenko, the system already provides more than 12% of budgetary savings from the volume of public procurement market in Ukraine, which amounts to 250 billion UAH per year. He also focused on the opportunities offered by the WTO public procurement agreement.

Yevgen Rokytskyi, adviser on Foreign Relations at UBIZ, focused on the opportunities for Polish entrepreneurs when entering the Ukrainian market. “With the reform in the enforcement proceedings, the sale of assets amounting to more than 560 billion, will increase” – he said.

The forum also focused on the benefits of investing in Ukraine. Roman Matis, Head of Investment at Lviv Regional State Administration, underlined that the problems of investors are now being delivered to all the authorities which can influence the situation. Having discussed the situation with investors, Mr. Matis came to the conclusion that today investors are concerned about three main issues: prohibition on withdrawal of dividends, mandatory sale of 75% of foreign exchange earnings and bureaucracy. Extensive discussion of these issues has already led to certain results. In particular, the requirement of compulsory sale of 75% of foreign exchange earnings which come as investments was recently abolished, and the changes abolishing compulsory state registration of the investment were voted for too. Roman Matis also mentioned some examples of recent successful projects with foreign investment launched in Lviv: Fujikura, Nexans, Klingspor.

The final session of the forum was devoted to presentations of investment projects of the International Competition finalists. Projects were presented by Ukrainian companies that are willing to start their activities in Poland. Innovative proposals included such industries as engineering, manufacturing and light industry, agriculture, IT.

The next forum will be held in Kyiv in November, 2016.