On June 8, Deputy Minister of Economy - Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka held an online meeting with  Deputy Director General of the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission Maive Rute.

The parties discussed topical issues of cooperation, outlined the work schedule of a number of working groups of the EU-Ukraine High Level Dialogue on horizontal issues and certain sectors of industry, in particular, energy and railway engineering and textile industry. By the end of 2021, meetings of working groups on industry and technical barriers to trade will be held. The working group on SMEs will be held in a more expanded format, with the participation of the newly established SE "Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office".

Taras Kachka commended the progress of the previous EU assessment mission on the readiness of Ukraine's quality infrastructure to prepare for the conclusion of the ACAA Agreement, stressed the important aspects of further cooperation with the European Union and the rapid transition to the"industrial visa-free regime" with the EU.

"We are grateful to our European partners for the systematic support of Ukraine on the way to concluding the "industrial visa-free regime." We will shortly be ready to move to the second phase of the official assessment of individual components of the Ukrainian quality infrastructure. We are also interested in developing a transport system for gas and hydrogen, producing blue and green hydrogen using our nuclear power facilities. I hope that our dialogue on the development of these areas will continue, " said Taras Kachka.

 The sides also touched upon the preparation of the EU-Ukraine High-Level Conference on Strategic Partnership in the Mining Sector, as well as the opportunities that open up for Ukraine in the framework of the implementation of the EU Hydrogen Strategy.