The Mnistry of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine hosted a meeting chaired by Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine on European Integration Natalia Boyko with representatives of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH headed by Anke Scholz, Director of the programm “Good Financial Governance”.

Natalia Boyko thanked for fruitful cooperation and implementation of the project "Strengthening of the Administrative Capacity in Public Finance" during the last 5 years. In particular, for the support of the regional component of the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) due to which Ukraine received the highest evaluation in the component of communication and work with civil society from the international EITI Board in the process of validation.

The Deputy Minister placed a special emphasis on the fact that such support is incredibly important  with a view to amendments to the budget legislation, according to which local communities will receive new revenues from mining companies. It is important to continue educational work on the peculiarities of accrual of such revenues, competent budgeting and strategic community development program, as well as monitoring the use of these funds.

She also commended the support of the draft law No. 6229 "On Ensuring Transparency in the Extractive Industries", which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on September 18. The draft law seeks to ensure the implementation of international standards and best practices in Ukraine in the extractive industries in line with EITI.

During the meeting, the attendees discussed further steps on future cooperation, in particular, work on the development of legal acts to implement the draft law No. 6229 "On Ensuring Transparency in the Extractive Industries", the development of an IT reporting system within the EITI, which is in line with the decision of the EITI Board on the transition to electronic implementation of the standard at the global level, and other issues related to the implementation of the EITI Standard in Ukraine.