KYIV – Ukraine has “turned the corner,” is back on investors’ radars and changing public perception beyond corruption and “war” about the country, Alexa Chopivsky, Ukraine House Davos (UHD) executive director, told The Ukrainian Weekly regarding the side venue’s performance at this year’s annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Ms. Chopivsky noted that attendance this year on January 21-25 reached an estimated 8,000 visitors – or 3,000 more than in 2018 when UHD debuted – and which included the traditional Ukrainian Breakfast that Viktor Pinchuk, a magnate whose father-in-law is ex-President Leonid Kuchma, has funded for 15 years through a charity foundation.
A separate cellphone application made available at Davos pinned the number of visitors at 9,000.
“Ukraine has staked its claim in the Davos event and is becoming recognized as a leader… among the country and business houses, a truly known leader in terms of packed high-quality content and a high-level networking culture,” said Ms. Chopivsky.
She added that our “brand is solidified… we had more space and more buzz on the street this year.”
The deliverables included securing two foreign investment deals worth nearly $400 million.
Private-equity fund manager Horizon Capital launched a third investment fund for $200 million. It was oversubscribed by more than $50 million and will target “high-growth and export-driven companies in Ukraine” that include players in the information technology, light manufacturing and food processing industries, the company’s news release said on January 23.
A new generation of entrepreneurs with hardly any conscious memory of the Soviet Union is enticing foreign investors to park their money in Ukraine, according to Lenna Koszarny, Horizon Capital founding partner and CEO.
“Visitors to Ukraine House and investors are attracted by the ‘generational shift’ in today’s Ukraine,” she said on the business networking platform LinkedIn. “They are looking to invest in the post-independence new generation of progressive young company founders and entrepreneurs who are true ‘business heroes’… adept at bypassing the country’s past shortcomings, and able to use the country’s talent and resources to build modern businesses.”
Stepping in also was the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – Ukraine’s biggest foreign investor – with a $150 million syndicated loan to finance Ukraine’s largest wind power farm to be located at a lake in the country’s southern Kherson Oblast.
The total project, worth $400 million, includes Norwegian energy giant NBT and the French company Total Eren, who jointly own the local developer SyvashEnergoProm LLC. Its capacity is supposed to reach 250 megawatts and power generation should start by the end of this year.
“This shows that Ukraine is opening for business because it is reforming, because it has been reforming the energy sector for several years now and moving towards European Union standards,” said Suma Chakrabarti, president of the EBRD, at Ukraine House Davos.
Aside from the free-trade agreement that Ukraine signed with the EU in 2014, it has more than 20 bilateral free-trade zones with other countries. The most recent one was signed with Israel on January 22. In July 2016, Canada and Ukraine signed theirs. Kyiv is still negotiating a free-trade agreement with Turkey; it’s the most such agreements that Ukraine is pursuing.
Changing perceptions
Ukraine’s storied contribution to world innovation was used as a key message to promote the country. Ms. Chopivsky, UHD executive director, emphasized that the online payment platform PayPal and the encoded message service WhatsApp were founded by people raised in Ukraine. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple – America’s first $1 trillion dollar company – also has roots here.
“The gas lamp, the helicopter and the world’s biggest aircraft were invented by Ukrainians,” Ms. Chopivsky pointed out.
A fashion show was presented by Lviv native Yuliya Magdych, whose couture designs are sold in 30 countries, including in London’s high-end Selfridges boutique.
“Our goal is for Ukraine to play an integral role in international dialogue at Davos… for international guests to see the globally relevant part of Ukraine,” Ms. Chopivsky said.
That included also “showcasing the country’s cultural traditions, its soul, cuisine, artists, musicians and fashion.”
To attract non-Ukrainians to UHD on Davos’s main thoroughfare meant telling “success stories” and not the ones that “Western journalists write” that focus on “war” and corruption, she added.
Indeed, Ukraine has improved its graft score on Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index since 2013.
Presidential Administration of Ukraine
President Petro Poroshenko (second from right) claps with European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Suma Chakrabarti (far right) after an agreement was signed on January 23 in Davos at the yearly World Economic Forum between the Norwegian company NBT, the French company Total Eren and the EBRD to build a 400-million euro wind farm in Ukraine.
Last year, according to the group’s new release on January 29, Ukraine ranked 120th among 180 countries, ahead of Russia but behind neighbors Moldova, Poland, Belarus, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.
However, “this result is not consistent with fast European integration, reforms and elimination of corruption from all aspects of life to which our country claims to aspire,” commented the executive director of Transparency International Ukraine, Andrii Borovyk.
More Davos takeaways
A panel on “trailblazing women leaders” was featured at Ukraine House Davos, Ms. Chopivsky observed. More panels were female-only, she added.
Unlike the entire World Economic Forum, where “a meager 22 percent of forum participants were women,” the entire UHD organizing committee comprised women, President Andy Hunder of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, wrote in a blog on January 28.
Yulia Kovaliv, the head of Ukraine’s National Investment Council, “brought top-caliber CEOs from multibillion [dollar] corporations… Speakers… included the new generation of Ukraine’s female leaders: Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Founding Dean and Chair of the Lviv Business School Sofia Opatska, and Kira Rudik, chief operating officer of Ring Ukraine, a company that was acquired by Amazon for $1 billion,” Mr. Hunder noted.
The British citizen of Ukrainian descent concluded that the country “was presented professionally and eloquently… It was some of the best investment promotion that I have seen Ukraine perform.”
Diaspora impact
Ukraine is finally harnessing the talent and experience of its diaspora community, Mr. Hunder noted. Present was Ukrainian Canadian Paul Grod, a successful businessman and newly elected president of the Ukrainian World Congress, which represents some 20 million Ukrainians worldwide. Chicagoan Natalia Jaresko was Ukraine’s post-Maidan finance minister, and Detroit-area native Ulana Suprun is the acting health minister.
Lawsuits by Ms. Suprun’s enemies in Ukraine kept her from speaking on UHD’s health panel on January 24.
High-voltage appearances
President Petro Poroshenko also was in attendance. He announced his re-election bid for another five-year term on January 29 in Kyiv. Historian Timothy Snyder and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were on hand. Ukrainian Canadians Roman Waschuk, his country’s ambassador to Ukraine; Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister; and Daniel Bilak, chairman of the state-run UkraineInvest promotion office, made the trip to Davos.
Washington-native Ms. Chopivsky is of Ukrainian descent, as are Ms. Koszarny and Jaroslava Johnson of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund.
“The strategy and inspiration of Ukraine’s presence at Davos was steered by Ukrainian diaspora trailblazers,” Mr. Hunder said.
Presidential candidates Yulia Tymoshen-ko, a two-time former prime minister, and Anatoliy Hrytsenko, a former defense minister, made appearances in Davos.
“Ukraine has a compelling story to tell,” remarked Mr. Bilak of UkraineInvest. “We have scale of both ‘brains and grains’ – a highly educated, competitive workforce and an agricultural powerhouse with one-third of the world’s black earth.”
Asked whether Ukraine House Davos will make a third appearance next year, Ms. Chopivsky said: “Yes, definitely, we’ll be back.”