Always interesting in Ukraine

The Ukraine government has proposed projects to foreign investors.
The government has drawn up a list of 840 investment projects related to Ukrainian economic sectors in order to raise foreign capital, according to Ukrainian First Vice Premier Andriy Kliuyev.

"We expect that large national and foreign industrial capital would pour to the country. The government has drawn up a list of 840 investment projects linked to the upgrade of the Ukrainian real economic sector," he said at the international investment forum on financing post-crisis economies of the CIS member states on
2 July 2010.

It will be interesting to see what's on offer. I met a consultant in Kyiv recently who introduced me to many 'projects' where the shareholders of Ukrainian companies were offering opportunities to investors to share in the development of their businesses. Th eonly reason I agreed to met this consultant is that for the first time I was presented with memorandums that had been carefully prepared and provided the kind of information we expect to see when a company is looking to attract investors. Prior to this I had always experienced the usual 'secret approach' to providing information to potential investors.

Now that the banks are making it very difficult to obtain finance for business development, more and more Ukrainian businesses are looking to foreign investors for development capital based on equity participation. Maybe it's a positive step that these businesses are being forced to find capital by other methods. There are many great opportunities to be found here in Ukraine if go through the right channels.

Unfortunately, nothing is ever straight forward in Ukraine. This is a major hurdle that causes confusion for so many potential investors. But there are many organisations offering support to foreign investors, including the British Business Club, so help is always available for those who really want to take advantage of a developing economy where labour and other production costs are one of the lowest in Europe.