EU hopes to mobilize up to EUR 7 bln of investments for seven years for Ukraine – European Commission representative

The EU has adopted an economic investment plan for three regions: the Eastern Partnership, the Western Balkans and the Southern Neighborhood – for Ukraine they hope to mobilize up to EUR 7 billion for investments for seven years, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission's Directorate for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Katarína Mathernová.

From the EU side, the focus will be more on investment, the EU has a new instrument to support investments – "de-risk instrument." This is a guarantee from the European Commission to its international financial institutions-partners in order to reduce the risks for investments in our partner countries, among which is Ukraine, she said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

She said that a lot of this will be sent to the Green Transition, a large portion will go to the digital transition, infrastructure renewal, and a lot is planned to be directed to access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses. According to Mathernová, this is already in the works, but this is a plan for the next seven years.

The representative of the European Commission said that Ukraine has a much greater economic potential than it was able to use until now, and that now there are much more opportunities than before to attract foreign investors.

There is much more potential to conduct transparent privatization, which will bring knowledge and know-how, new business practices and the opportunity to be a link in the European production chain to the country, she said. And one of the areas where it is necessary, it is simply necessary to do better, is public administration, corporate governance, justice, predictability of the business environment. Again, there have been improvements, Mathernová added. But she does not think Ukraine is already there, as the country will have to work hard to change investor sentiment and attract investment.