The year of 2023 should be the year of Ukraine’s early recovery, which foreign business can join today. This was the key topic of discussion during a meeting in Kyiv between First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko and representatives of the largest French employer federation, MEDEF.

Representatives of French companies operating in the fields of energy, infrastructure, construction, medical technology and healthcare, among others, are in Ukraine on an official business mission. Yuliia Svyrydenko had already had a substantive discussion with some of them last December during her visit to Paris. So the parties continued their dialog on the needs of Ukraine’s reconstruction and the possibilities of attracting French businesses, investments, and implementing joint projects.

“Early recovery will be one of the main challenges for Ukraine this year. Our task is to bring people back home as soon as possible. This can be achieved only by overcoming the consequences of russian aggression and restoring the destroyed social infrastructure, housing, and damaged energy system. The Ukrainian Government sees great prospects in involving French companies in the reconstruction. Therefore, in order to seize these opportunities, we call on French business to engage in a dialogue with your government to provide financial guarantees that can be used to attract soft loans secured by the French Export Credit Agency, Bpifrance,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The parties discussed in detail the insurance of war risks, since their coverage would encourage businesses not to wait for the end of the war and invest in Ukraine right now. Ukraine is already seeing significant investor attention to projects, including those aggregated on the Advantage Ukraine platform. Therefore, the introduction of effective war risk insurance mechanisms can significantly speed up the process of attracting investments.

Earlier, the French Government allocated EUR 1.2 billion in macro-financial assistance to Ukraine. Of these funds, EUR 1 billion can be used to guarantee credit risks, and EUR 200 million – to attract direct lending from the French Treasury. The condition for the EUR 200 million loan is that French manufacturers and contractors must be involved in implementation of relevant projects at a level of at least 50%.

At the same time, the credit risk guarantee requires involvement of French businesses in projects at the level of 20% only. Under these conditions, Ukraine will receive extremely favorable concessional financing, with all risks covered by Bpifrance.