To get back on foot, Ukraine can count on French know-how. This is the message that the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard wanted to convey and that of foreign affairs Jean-Noël Barrot, gathered in Bercy on March 7 alongside the Minister of the Ukrainian Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko, to reveal the 19 projects selected as part of the Ukraine Fund. This system, with an envelope of 200 million euros, is funded by donations from public development assistance and focuses on priority sectors such as health, demining or energy.
Since its launch last June, French companies have been there. The Ukrainian government has received applications for a total of more than 700 million euros. In the list of winners, tricolor flagships, such as Thales, rub shoulders with SMEs and ETIs. The common point of their projects: a rapid implementation, with a maximum period of sixteen months.
The city of Kharkiv is thus preparing to see the electrical equipment of its heat network renovated by Schneider Electric, while C3Medical will provide teleconsultation solutions in five regions of the country. For its part, Saint-Gobain plans to improve the supply of drinking water from the northern districts of the city of Kryvyï Rih, who have an insufficient and poor water quality supply since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023.
The private sector, keystone of recovery
These initiatives will also benefit in France, with around fifty production sites involved on the national territory. Because another criterion was essential to be able to benefit from the fund: the French share in the added value of each project was to rise, at least, to 50 % of the donation.
It is now a question of anchoring this cooperation over time. “This is only the beginning, we have to expand this program to allow more French companies to participate in this reconstruction,” Yulia Svyrydenko told Bercy, welcoming the fact that the French government was the first to set up this bilateral tool.
With the ambition to make the private sector the keystone of its recovery, the country has implemented several investment incentives, including the creation of industrial parks and a series of tax exemptions. Stopping a dynamic economy, with a growth rate at 3.6% in 2024, the Minister of the Ukrainian economy called on French companies to take up this opportunity, encouraging them in passing the process of privatization started in the country.
For candidates not selected within the framework of the Ukraine fund, other opportunities should arise, it is assured to the Treasury. Because in the field, expectations are immense. Revalled by the World Bank in February, the cost of reconstruction would exceed 500 billion euros in the coming ten years. “We have to start the reconstruction now,” argued Yulia Svyrydenko.