Restoration of Ukraine, humanitarian demining, investment in the domestic economy and cooperation in the field of digital and modern technologies. These and other topics were discussed during the video meeting by First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko and Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs and Minister of the Economy of Luxemburg Franz Fayot.

“Now we have two main tasks before us: to do everything for victory and to start rebuilding Ukraine right now, without waiting for the end of the war. One of the main tasks of the Government this year is to support the private sector of the economy. These are programs to support small and medium-sized businesses, the processing industry, destroyed enterprises in the de-occupied territories, and the introduction of political risk insurance instruments. The Government is introducing the necessary tools to ensure a favorable business climate and legislative framework,” Yuliia Svyrydenko told.

She invited representatives of Luxembourg to participate in the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference (URC23), which will be held in London on June 21-22, 2023.

“Discussions at the conference will focus on overcoming obstacles to investment and how the Government of Ukraine plans to promote the necessary reforms with the support of international partners and civil society. In parallel, we will present financial instruments aimed at increasing investor confidence in investing in Ukraine. The Governments of the United Kingdom and Ukraine will encourage other countries to offer private sector initiatives to strengthen investor confidence. We consider Luxembourg’s strengths, such as your innovative and modern economic approaches, a powerful tool to help Ukraine recover from the destruction caused by Russian barbarians,” Yuliia Svyrydenko emphasized.

According to Yuliia Svyrydenko, one of the main problems in the context of European cooperation on humanitarian aid today is the issue of demining, namely humanitarian demining of agricultural lands. According to the World Bank estimates, the full range of humanitarian demining operations could cost $37.4 billion. According to preliminary estimates, $1.5 billion are needed only for the priority needs of surveying and priority demining of agricultural lands.

New modern demining techniques are needed to overcome this problem. A certain amount of this type of equipment is already in use in Ukraine, but there are significant additional needs.

“We need to conduct training for those who will work on them - on the machines that Ukraine purchases for demining. This is very important for us, since without clearing the land, it is impossible to start the process of restoring Ukraine. According to the four-year plan, we have to clear 630,000 hectares of land,” Yuliia Svyrydenko stated.

The parties also discussed Luxembourg’s opportunities to support Ukrainian business, war risk insurance, and those projects that the parties could develop in the form of private partnership or private-public partnership.

In turn, Franz Fayot stated that Luxembourg is interested in cooperation with Ukraine, especially in the field of digital technologies.

“We know that there are fantastic programmers in Ukraine. For the last decade, the global fintech sector has been working with Ukrainian IT companies. Therefore, I believe that IT is definitely the field where there is great potential for our cooperation. After all, Luxembourg has developed a good digital infrastructure over the years,” Franz Fayot agreed.

According to him, Ukrainian specialists have a lot to learn from the point of view of ensuring cyber security. After all, they resist cyberattacks by Russian hackers during the war.

Luxembourg is ready to cooperate with Ukraine in the space and military spheres. The companies from this country are also ready to take part in demining our country.

Franz Fayot promised to discuss the possibility of providing instruments of military risk insurance for investments in Ukraine, as well as to attract a number of agencies and non-governmental organizations that are actively engaged in microfinancing of businesses to Ukraine.