Vіra Savchenko on behalf of BDO Ukraine took part in a Ukrainian business mission to the EU official

After gaining a candidacy status Ukrainian business environment need to be deeper integrated with European.  On the meetings with EESC Employers' Group, European External Action Service, European Neighbourhood Council, BusinessEurope, Directorate-General for Trade, Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiation and Nicola Beer VP of European Parlament the following topics were discussed:

• As the energy supply stabilized, a shortage of personnel is the main problem for Ukrainian businesses of all sizes:

1) men were called to the army;
2) many people left Ukraine and decided not to continue working for Ukrainian employers.

For example, our army needs all truck and tractor drivers because they can drive the heavy machinery that our partners are supplying to Ukraine.

• To partially solve this problem, we raise the issue of tax exemption for Ukrainians in the EU for income from Ukraine for the 2023 year. This will save at least some part of the labor force and taxes for our country.

• Ukrainian business needs money to survive, relocate, continue operation, and expand and grow. There are several support programs that exist (”5-7-9 affordable loans” for example) but there is a lack of consistency between those programs and much more investments are needed to rebuild the Ukrainian economy. The major issue is the absence of war risk insurance for foreign private investors in Ukraine.

• To solve this problem, we raise a question of guidelines from the EU commission to the EU country's government to create a common approach to war risk insurance.

• The third issue is the lack of information about Ukrainian investment needs and opportunities. There are gaps in certain regions and sectors and again and again, a consistent approach from the Ukrainian side, as from the European side, is needed.

• One real step was discussed to do a networking event for Ukrainian SMEs where investment opportunities will be presented. From our side, there is already a platform Investment map of Ukraine which we will promote to gather as much as we can potentially good projects and ways of financing for them.

BDO in Ukraine will continue to take part in the post-war Recovery of Ukraine in order to help our clients and other businesses with our expertise.