On October 11, 2021 Kyiv hosted the forum “Dialog Between the Civil Society, Business and the Government”. During the forum its participants among whom there were parliamentarians and government officials were discussing institutional and economic reform priorities with business community leaders. Yaroslav Romanchuk, Attorney at Law, EUCON Legal Group Managing Partner took the floor as one of the speakers.
The forum organizers – National Business Coalition and Ukrainian Business Council united over 100 business associations representing more than 40 thousand enterprises from all over the country. The event was supported by the Centre for International Private Entrepreneurship (CIRE).
Yaroslav Romanchuk took the floor on Polish-Ukrainian investment cooperation and its potential within the framework of the second panel discussion devoted to the vision of the realities and prospects of economic reforms of the current government and the priorities of Ukrainian business and civil society. Thus, the speaker shifted the focus of the discussion to cooperation with Poland through the prism of attracting investment, financial resources and export component. Furthermore, he asked officials about the specific actions of the current government in the context of the implementation of the adopted laws to stimulate significant investment and industrial parks, as well as prospects for passing a bill on fiscal incentives for investors.
The speaker stressed that there are currently three main aspects for Ukrainian business, namely: 1). access to financial resources (Ukraine has a limited amount of financial resources, and the available ones are very expensive), 2). the possibility of creating partnerships and attracting investment and 3). export component (export of their products by the producers).
Yaroslav Romanchuk mentioned that it is necessary to make public demonstration of possibilities how to use Polish-Ukrainian trade and economic cooperation for improving of the investment climate and of investment potential at the international, diplomatic and governmental levels.
“Currently we face a catastrophic stagnation of investment cooperation between Ukraine and Poland, however in 2021 the number of Polish investments into Ukrainian economics started to grow”, – stated Mr. Romanchuk on the basis of available statistics.
Access to a wide range of cheap financial instruments and resources, financing programs for export in Poland, using Poland’s opportunities in the context of collaboration rather than competition – are what the expert believes we should be focused on to improve the investment climate between the two countries.
Regarding transport issues, Yaroslav Romanchuk rightly noted that the problem of obtaining permits for road transport has always existed, so in this context, the proposal from the Polish Railways to partially transfer freight transport to the railroad tracks is quite good. The prospect of using wide and narrow railway gauges between the Polish city of Chelm and the Ukrainian Kovel is obvious and beneficial for both the Ukrainian side and the Polish side as well.