The United States will help Ukraine modernise its business support programmes and projects to attract private investment. This was agreed during a meeting between Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Bridget Brink, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, and James Hope, USAID Mission Director to Ukraine.

During the meeting, the Ukrainian side presented 11 key priorities for the current year, as well as initiatives under the Ukraine Facility. These focused on expanding opportunities for Ukrainian exports, attracting investment, and reforming the energy sector. The parties also discussed opportunities for American companies and the USAID mission to participate in joint projects.

“I would like to thank the United States for its unwavering support for Ukraine during the war with russia. Now we are aiming for an early economic recovery, which is impossible without attracting private investment. To do this, we need to expand the possibilities for insuring investors against war-related risks. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian ECA has limited capacity to increase funding for such programmes. Therefore, we propose to consider the possibility of expanding investor insurance through the DFC or other financial organisation,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The parties agreed that USAID would join the discussion of the SME Development Strategy for the period up to 2027, which is currently being developed by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine. Its goal is to help address the urgent problems of small and medium-sized businesses, including access to finance, logistics disruptions, reduced purchasing power, and a lack of qualified personnel. The dialogue with the U.S. partners also focused on strengthening the analytical component of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine.

“This year, we want to modernise our support programmes for small and medium-sized businesses to make them more effective. We need to focus on creating new jobs and increasing the contribution of new businesses to additional GDP. That is why we will pay more attention to the development of small and medium-sized businesses, especially processing enterprises. We invite our American colleagues not only to expand financial support for the relevant programmes, but also to share their own experience on how to make support for small and medium-sized businesses even more effective,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The parties also discussed the reform of labour legislation, which should increase women’s economic activity and their competitiveness in the labour market. The Government plans to introduce programmes to promote active employment of women, which should create 30,000 new jobs this year. Ukraine has recently adopted a Strategy for Reducing the Gender Pay Gap and the Government has already begun implementing it.