Attracting investment from American companies to rebuild Ukraine, training and retraining Ukrainians and creating conditions for Ukrainians to return home, using frozen russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine – these and other issues were discussed during a meeting between Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, and Penny Pritzker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery.

The meeting was also attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Ukraine Bridget Brink, Executive Chairman of Clayco Robert Clark, CEO of Westinghouse Patrick Fragman, CEO of Amentum John Heller, advisors to the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and First Deputy Minister of Economy Oleksii Sobolev.

“The agenda includes extremely important issues for our economic self-sufficiency. We started active work in this area together with Penny Pritzker’s office last year. Today we discussed the progress that has been made recently in terms of key steps, including attracting investment, creating conditions for the return of Ukrainians, and building the institutional capacity of government agencies. For example, the launch of the Strategic Investment Council, the necessary steps to reform public investment management, the creation of an institution for the preparation of high-quality investment projects (Project Preparation Facility), joint efforts to use frozen russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The main task of the Strategic Investment Council is to increase the efficiency of public investments and improve the quality of coordination in the field of investments with partners. In autumn, the Council plans to approve a single portfolio of public investment projects for the next year.

Other issues discussed at the meeting included:

• improving the work of the government office for attracting and supporting investments, UkraineInvest;
• accelerating project preparation and improving the planning process;
• implementation of joint projects in the nuclear energy, defence and construction sectors and expansion of cooperation between U.S. and Ukrainian companies.

Representatives of U.S. companies present at the meeting spoke about their current work in Ukraine and their plans. For example, Westinghouse, together with Energoatom, launched a project to build two units at Khmelnytskyi NPP using AR1000 technology this spring. And Amentum is working on a joint venture with the Ukrainian Defence Industry. For its part, the construction company Clayco is considering participating in rehabilitation projects in Ukraine.

The meeting also focused on the labour market and creating conditions for the return of Ukrainians who were forced to leave the country due to the war, including by introducing training and retraining programmes, developing grant programmes for starting their own businesses, mortgage programmes for buying housing on affordable terms, and others.

“At the Recovery Conference in Berlin, we announced the Skills Alliance initiative, which aims to provide Ukrainians with the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to rebuild. Mastering new professions or upgrading their skills will improve employment prospects in Ukraine, including for young people, IDPs and veterans. It will also create the conditions for the return of people who were forced to go abroad. Therefore, we are committed to strengthening coordination and further cooperation in this area,” said First Deputy Minister of Economy Oleksii Sobolev.