As a result of many months of cooperation between Ukraine and the Kingdom of Spain, Ukraine has gained access to EUR 50 million in Spanish state recovery funds, an additional grant of EUR 1 million to support the resilience of the private sector in Ukraine, EUR 4.6 million for humanitarian demining, and concluded a number of agreements in the fields of energy, logistics and other key sectors of the economy.

This was discussed during the 4th meeting of the Joint Ukrainian-Spanish Intergovernmental Commission on Economic and Industrial Cooperation co-chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko and Minister of Economy, Trade and Business of the Kingdom of Spain Carlos Cuerpo Caballero on 26 June.

The event was attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Kingdom of Spain Sergiy Pogoreltsev, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ministry of Digital Transformation, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, JSC Ukrzaliznytsia, State Agency for Tourism Development, etc.

“We are grateful to Spain for its unwavering support of Ukraine and assistance – from humanitarian to military. In particular, for the decision announced in May to allocate EUR 1 billion to support our defence capabilities. One of the priorities in cooperation with Spain is the energy sector, which remains one of the key targets of russian attacks. We are grateful to Spain for providing generators and energy equipment, as well as for their financial contribution to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund in the amount of over EUR 4.5 million,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine also noted the importance of humanitarian demining.

Last year, at the Zagreb Conference on Humanitarian Demining, Spain announced EUR 1.5 million in humanitarian demining assistance for Ukraine. And during today’s meeting of the Commission, another EUR 3 million in additional funding was announced for this purpose.

The meeting also discussed the memorandum signed between Ukrzaliznytsia and Adif, the Spanish railway infrastructure operator, on the implementation of a pilot project using the technology of an automatic system for changing the width of wheel sets of freight rolling stock for different gauges for western crossings. To implement the project, it is planned to create a consortium of Spanish companies and Ukrzaliznytsia, which will cooperate with the Spanish Ministry of Trade to attract project financing through the mechanism of the Corporate Internationalisation Fund (FIEM) for JSC Ukrzaliznytsia.

According to Yuliia Svyrydenko, today’s meeting of the Joint Ukrainian-Spanish Intergovernmental Commission on Economic and Industrial Cooperation provides an opportunity to discuss important issues of bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation, Ukraine’s recovery, cooperation in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture, standardisation, science, healthcare, tourism, and climate change.

“We see significant opportunities for attracting Spanish investment to Ukraine, especially in the context of rebuilding and modernising our infrastructure. We are ready to provide comprehensive support to Spanish investors. Strengthening trade is also important to us. In 2023, Spain ranked 6th in terms of bilateral trade in goods between Ukraine and the EU, with a share of 4.8% of total trade. In January-April 2024, our exports to Spain increased by 88.6% to USD 1,094.4 million. In this context, it is important for us to increase the percentage of non-resource exports,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

Following the meeting, the parties signed the final minutes of the Commission’s meeting.