The Ministry of Economy continues a series of meetings to discuss the urgent needs and proposals of Ukrainian businesses. Today, on March 22, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko met with representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (ACC) member companies covering agriculture, food, banking, IT, retail, e-commerce, tourism, hospitality and other industries. The event was attended by Deputy Ministers Oleksii Sobolev and Nadiia Bihun.

"Our task for this year is to focus our negotiations with our partners on supporting Ukrainian entrepreneurs and covering the budget deficit. The Ministry of Economy is focused on the development of the processing industry, integration into the EU markets, updating agreements with Canada and the UAE, entering African markets, and tax policy issues. Deregulation is a separate issue. We maintain an open dialogue with businesses to better understand their needs in this area. We are also working on an economic strategy for the recovery of Ukraine, a major part of which is the work of Ukrainian business," said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

Thus, the participants discussed priority issues for business, such as deregulation, demining, and the sowing season, where entrepreneurs need support from the state. In particular, the Ministry of Economy is working to expand the 5-7-9 affordable lending programme, adding sectors that can benefit from the programme with a reduced interest rate and receive guarantees from the state.

They also focused on the issue of humanitarian demining. According to the regional military administrations, the total area of contaminated and mined agricultural land in the de-occupied territories currently exceeds 470,000 hectares. Thus, the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining has adopted a plan for demining agricultural land, and private enterprises, the State Emergency Service and the Ministry of Defence are already implementing it. In particular, Mykolaiv region became the first region to clear agricultural land of mines.

In addition, business representatives commended the Ministry of Economy for its deregulation efforts. The Ministry of Economy is focused on creating the most favourable conditions for business development by cancelling outdated and unnecessary state regulation instruments.

The participants also stressed the importance of the Ukraine Recovery Conference to be held jointly by the UK and Ukraine in London in June this year. Ukraine expects the conference to be more practical in terms of business engagement. In particular, the Government and businesses are working together to develop practical cases for attracting investment from foreign partners, including war risk insurance instruments.