On September 14, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Mykhailo Titarchuk opened the International Conference on the Development of Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

In his statement, Mykhailo Titarchuk spoke about the successful experience of neighboring countries, in particular in the EU, where during the year of 2017 there had been concluded 40 PPP contracts worth about EUR14 billion.

"Implementation of PPP projects in Ukraine will also become an effective mechanism for attracting investments into the economy", the Deputy Minister assured.

"Public-private partnerships should be considered as a tool to leverage additional investment. As an example, today Ukraine needs about $25 billion of investment to retrofit the national communal infrastructure. It is needs to be recognized that without attracting funds from the private sector, finding such financial resources will be extremely difficult", the Deputy Minister emphasized.

The main focus of the conference was on the following topics: development of the port infrastructure with the help of the PPP mechanism, PPP in the aviation sector, facility management and PPP in the healthcare sector, PPP utility projects, PPP mechanism in the highway sector and road charges.

Mykhailo Titarchuk also reminded all the participants of the conference about the changes introduced by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade on concession legislation: "Parliament adopted in the first reading the bill" On Concessions", which is designed to create a single procedure for the conduct of all forms of PPP, a transparent system for determining the concessionary, as well as additional guarantees for private partners and creditors".

"Moreover, preparations for the implementation of the first three public-private partnership projects under the new legislation are already underway, namely the creation of the CCTV system to contol violations of traffic regulations in Kyiv and the concession of two facilities: the the Olvia Stevedoring Company and Kherson Sea Commercial Port", told in his statement the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.

The Infrastructure PPPs in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Conference 2018 was organized by the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Support Office the Spilno under the Ministry of Infrastructure and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Ukraine.

The event was attended by entrepreneurs and public sector from different countries. Within the framework of the event, the latest developments in public-private partnership, as well as new opportunities for Ukraine in the sector of public-private partnership, were discussed.