Luhansk region to actively attract foreign investment
Kyiv, November 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Luhansk region plans to raise foreign investment and will hold the first Luhansk International Investment Forum on November 18 and November 19, First Deputy Chairman of Luhansk regional administration, Eduard Lozovsky, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
He said that details about the specifics of investment and the organization of business would be presented at the forum, and prospects for interested investors in Luhansk region would be discussed.
He said that a top priority for the region is the extraction and processing of deposits of natural resources (30% of the region's economy is coal extraction), engineering, chemical and light industry, the utilities sector – mainly water supplies – as well as agriculture and transport infrastructure.
Lozovsky said that at present the region has prepared six land plots for the creation of industrial parks. In addition, around 50 investment projects have been drawn up. The most important of them is a project on water purification and transportation from the northern districts of the region to the southern districts. In addition, the task of decentralizing heat supplies was set in the utility sphere (in particular, individual boilers would be bought) and to transfer to alternative energy sources. In addition, among the projects are transport and logistics projects, in particular, the building of the Luhansk-Donetsk highway, infrastructure for border crossing points on the border with Russia, the construction of a cargo hub at Luhansk international airport and a river port on the Siversky Donets River.
He said that the authorities were do all they could to assist investors, supporting businessmen with beneficial credits, and realizing a program on the creation of jobs, under which 14 companies in the region received UAH 122 million.
The authorities have also created a Regional Agency for Investment Promotion company. Lozovsky said that the company's creation is aimed at presenting of investment projects to investors and provision of comfortable work for them under a 'single window' principle.
The director of the Regional Agency for Investment Promotion company, Yuriy Berezhnoy ,said at the conference that the region's leadership has drawn up a set of measures on the creation of economic privileges for investors and businessmen. Board chairman of founder of Agroton Group and head of Luhansk Agrarian Confederation Yuriy Zhuravliov, said at the conference that the authorities had taken on some infrastructure expenses and drawn up documents during the development of agricultural projects in the region.
A representative of the Arzinger law firm, Maksym Cherkasenko, said at the conference that agriculture remains the most popular sector in Luhansk region, and it has a large potential for development.