Mind Invest Summit 2024 was held in Lviv

The Mind Invest Summit is underway in Lviv for two days – a conference for investors, entrepreneurs, startup teams and everyone who is serious about Ukraine and its assets as investment targets. We have gathered a balanced line-up of speakers whose speeches, judgements, beliefs and opinions have a direct or indirect impact on the country's investment attractiveness.

Over the course of two days, the Mind Invest Summit will feature:

• Representatives of state regulatory authorities who are in charge of attracting investment to Ukraine and the regulatory regime for investors. Among them are Ruslan Magomedov, Chairman of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission of Ukraine, Oleksiy Sobolev, Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, and Vitaliy Koval, Chairman of the State Property Fund;       
• Institutional and state-owned investment funds that have been already investing in Ukraine or considering investment opportunities;      
• Businesspeople from the really large business segment, who not only attract investments but are investors themselves. Among them are Sergiy Kovalenko (YASNO), Ivan Kompan (Deloitte Academy), Sergiy Martynchuk (Cisco Ukraine), Mykhailo Bubnov (Schneider Electric Ukraine), Mykhailo Poliakov (Philip Morris Ukraine), Ashot Abrahamyan (Lviv Bank), Rostyslav Vovk (Kormotech)       
• Small- and medium-sized businesses in search of investments and ways to enter new export markets.

The work starts on the first day, 28 June, with an interview with the third President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. This conversation is important for two reasons: characteristically, it takes place on the Day of the Constitution, which Viktor Andriyovych was the guarantor of. And also because during Mr. Yushchenko's tenure, Ukraine attracted a record amount of foreign direct investment (the investment balance was +340.3% in 2005, with FDI reaching $7808 million).

The full programme of the event is available at this link.

News and events will be streamed on our website, so please follow our news feed, social media activities and materials.

Additionally, the UA Tech Show, an exposition that brings together leading Ukrainian tech companies to present the latest products and inventions to visitors, is taking place on the site. The exhibitors' objective is really simple: to look for and find partners, investors or customers.

And in the evening of each day, the participants can enjoy performances as part of Jazz Fest. On the first day, the summit guests will be immersed in the atmosphere of exquisite musical improvisation by Jazz in Kyiv Band and its famous leader Aleksey Kogan, and on the second day by the magnificent Nino Katamadze.

Viktor Yushchenko at Mind Invest Summit 2024: Ukraine needs new capacities for oil refining, fertiliser production, and grain storage.

"Today, Ukraine needs to build two refineries. There were 5 grain processing plants in Ukraine, and none of them are operating today. Ukraine needs fertilisers the most in Europe: there is not a single fertiliser plant, nor are there any supplies of these products [to foreign markets]," the 3rd President of Ukraine said.

"Two-thirds of Ukrainians who have gone abroad have higher education. Ukraine must fight for the return of its citizens home," Yushchenko also said. According to him, "the state has enough human potential without migrants".

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy: "We have to invest in education for 10 years, if we want to succeed in Ukraine. Only investment in education will yield results."  He believes that Ukraine has incredible human potential, but it is presently employed by other countries. And we need to work to bring this potential back home.

Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office: "Ukraine needs to move away from 'telephone law' to institutionalise business-to-state relations."

In his words, Ukraine has a long-standing "tradition" of trying to resolve all issues on a personal level. Instead, it is high time we delegated these tasks to specific institutions and developed certain procedures.

As for disputes between businesses and government bodies, they should be resolved in a civilised manner. There are three ways to do this:

1. Publicity.
2. Institutionalisation of relations.
3. Communication at various levels.

"Throughout the development of the Ukrainian state, it has often been accused of infantilism. But not only the state can be infantile. Business can be infantile too. And it also needs to mature," Podoliak stressed.

Ruslan Magomedov, Chairman of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission: "In the current environment in Ukraine, the problem of protecting corporate rights and property is becoming more and more urgent. For instance, many companies have found themselves in a situation where their corporate rights may be under threat."

According to him, the National Commission has proposed and implemented an innovative service that is already operting for businesses across Ukraine as a response to these challenges – record keeping in the central depository. This mechanism allows companies to place their corporate rights under the protection of the government through direct registration in a centralised registry, which will protect them from illegal attacks through manipulation by registrars.

"Not only does this service provide reliable protection of property rights, but it also simplifies the process of interacting with government agencies and depositories. This makes it essential for any business in a time of geopolitical volatility," Magomedov emphasised.

Taras Kytsmey, co-founder of SoftServe: "Ukraine's IT industry enjoys a high reputation and quality of services. Along with that, the industry has been changing in line with the realities of the war, and many Ukrainian professionals now work in the field of weapons production, including UAVs."

According to him, due to Ukraine's IT industry, a new military-industrial complex is being created.

Taras Kytsmey named their ability to come up with extraordinary technical solutions as one of the competitive advantages of Ukrainian IT specialists. "Creativity is something you cannot predict. But such solutions are more valued. Ukrainian technical specialists are very creative, and they are ahead of global competitors in this regard," he said.

Sergiy Martynchuk, CEO at Cisco Ukraine: "We keep believing in the great potential of this market. Changes in the population, GDP growth per capita – all of this affects our decision-making. Our task now is to preserve the population and promote its increase. As a large company, we understand our responsibility for the level of digitalisation and the development of digital services."

Yuliya Lipovetska, Founder and CEO of SAPience: "International partners come to Ukraine for our intelligence. Intellectual potential is a value of our mentality that is extremely important, especially in the face of changing economic and geopolitical factors. Even in times of war, Ukraine remains a large intellectual market with a population of over 30 million people."

Kseniya Orynchak, Executive Director of the National Association of Mining Industries of Ukraine (NADPU): Ukraine is among the top 10 countries in terms of deposits of important minerals, mostly for export. These include titanium ore, kaolin, iron ore and graphite, but the main deposits are located in the occupied territories.

"In my opinion, as well as that of geological experts, the war in Ukraine is being waged over these resources. You can see that the biggest hostilities are taking place in the areas with the most resources," she said. In the occupied areas of Ukraine, mineral resources include coal worth about $7 trillion and other minerals estimated at about $12-13 trillion, Mrs. Orynchak said.

Mrs. Orynchak noted, in particular, that lithium ores are not mined in Ukraine because of the military operations. Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was among the world leaders in lithium reserves.

Vitaliy Koval, Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine: "The government owns a lot of assets that currently look like a liability. It is important that each of you find your growth points. Business is always more efficient in operations than state management, and we want this to be clear to all stakeholders."

In his opinion, only objects of strategic importance should remain in state ownership. "This is not the case with hotels, so we are determined to actively put state-owned hotels up for privatisation so that they can become successful private businesses," he stressed.

Vitaliy Koval said that "the Fund's work now has two new important areas: privatisation of russian owners' nationalised assets and active opening of the land lease market."

Sergiy Prytula, civil volunteer and charity founder: "One of the keys to the success of volunteering is to attract bloggers, celebrities and stars of the creative industry and sports as transmitters of information to their bubbles."

Thanks to the synergy of volunteers, the government and Ukrainian business – from individual entrepreneurs to large corporations – we see fundraisers that raise hundreds of thousands of hryvnias. I consider this to be the most magnificent story.

"However, I would like the government to be more active in adopting the initiatives offered by the volunteer sector," Mr. Prytula said.

Olga Rudneva, CEO of the Superhumans Centre: "A person who fought is a celebrity today."

Ashot Abrahamyan, Chairman of the Board of Lviv Bank: "We worked with existing partners in previous years, but this year four new partners joined us. We have signed new agreements worth €30 million. We expect loan guarantees of $65 million. We are now in a phase where everyone wants to do something for Ukraine."

He added that a week ago, the NBU granted permission to a Dutch fund to become a shareholder in Lviv Bank with a 20% stake. This will increase the bank's capital by $6 million. "This is a unique event when a new foreign investor has injected funds into Ukraine's banking sector since the beginning of the major war," Abrahamyan said.

Investors are now ready to provide loans to Ukrainian businesses.  "At the outbreak of the war, foreign shareholders were shocked. They said: when the war is over, that's when we will help. The next phase was when they realised that the war was not going to end soon," he explained.

According to Mr. Abrahamyan, the bank's existing clients were the first to respond, signing new deals. "When they started to do so, others joined in. Now we are in a phase where everyone wants to do something for Ukraine," he concludes.

Vasyl Khmelnytsky, founder of UFuture: "I am delighted when I am not at a loss. This panel was announced as a platform for big business communication. I would say that this is a panel of strong medium-sized businesses. And as things are evolving, I wouldn't be surprised if we will be representing small businesses in a few years."

"My goal now is not to earn 100 million, but to keep the team and processes in place. If I manage to keep it, I will believe that I have won," he admitted.

Vasyl Khmelnytsky also called on Ukrainian business to actively develop the production of deeply processed products: "There are no countries in the world that are interested in Ukraine ceasing to be a raw material economy. It is our job to develop production."

Tetiana Lukiniuk, B2C Director at Kyivstar: "Telecom is not a business that can take everything and move abroad. We will definitely continue to build the network in Ukraine."

Speaking about working in the face of regular blackouts, Tetiana Lukiniuk said: "We are doing our best. However, communication cannot function without electricity. For example, 1 base station requires a field of solar power plants.  To install a generator, you need two engineers, and besides, you need round-the-clock security." Therefore, it is impossible to power the 40,000 base stations owned by the company.

But this does not cancel the optimistic and ambitious plans. According to her, the company now sees its challenge as covering 98% of the population and all roads with Kyivstar mobile communications in the long run.

Rostyslav Vovk, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and co-owner of Kormotech:  "Don't start entering international markets from Poland. This is the most difficult market. We are already writing our third strategy for it, and if it doesn't work, we will quit. Moldova, Romania, Albania, Serbia have much more opportunities."

He also called on all entrepreneurs and business owners to take care of each employee in the face of regular power cuts, especially in the run-up to winter. After all, "energy independence" of an office is not a 100% guarantee of success. "When they [the employees] come back from your lighted office to their cold, dark apartment, it will have a great impact on their motivation. Therefore, think about how to provide each of your employees with everything they need to function properly during blackouts," the speaker emphasised.

Sergiy Kovalenko, CEO of YASNO: "As a country, Ukraine has been in energy deficit for two years. We have no options when there is no deficit. It just varies in volume."

In his words, the enemy has changed its tactics this year. The russians have destroyed heat electropower generation by 90 per cent, hydro generation by a large percentage, and have returned to attacking large grid facilities in recent weeks.

"From August to October, we expect some relief in the electricity supply situation in Ukraine. This is due to the fact that nuclear power units will come out of repair, and the increased consumption of the heating season has not yet begun," said YASNO CEO.
"It takes a lot of time to build a large generation facility. Alternative energy sources cannot be used to balance the power system," explained the company's CEO.

Discussing the issue of alternative generation, he pointed out that solar generation is more popular and perceived as more promising among all renewable energy sources due to its greater accessibility for households and therefore greater prevalence. But Ukraine's uniqueness lies in the fact that its territory has great prospects for wind generation.

Mariya Shevchuk, Director of the IT Ukraine Association: "Our task is to sell Ukraine as a location. We look quite good now, even with all the challenges. But our competitors are growing up. The biggest one is India. Now it can focus on not very complicated solutions, while Ukrainians are not afraid to take on hard tasks. Besides, we have great digital skills as a nation. Therefore, the attractiveness of the Ukrainian IT industry is currently much higher. But India will also be increasing its capabilities."

She noted that one of the nuances of competition in this case is the large gap between the markets of the two countries. "While the Ukrainian market employs 300,000 programmers, the Indian market has about 6 million," said Mariya Shevchuk.

Vitaliy Sedler, CEO and co-founder of Intellias: Pessimism about the decline of the IT sector is relative if compared to previous years, when "it was normal to grow by 20%".

According to him, one should not believe that "the industry has been halved", but it is a case of reduced growth. "If you look at it impartially, there was no catastrophe. It is just an economic crisis. After the economic downturn, there will be growth. The task now is to show that we can do it in these conditions," he stressed.

Andriy Trofimov, head of ERAM's Western Ukraine location, said that his company plans a slight decline, which will fluctuate "around zero". "Now it's high time for internal optimisation to be revenue ability. We need to review budgets as they were focused on growth," he explained.

Trofimov added that the company continues to pursue strategic acquisitions. "If we buy a company, it is a company with expertise that we are interested in. There is no ban on buying companies in Ukraine," Trofimov said.

When asked about the investment strategy, he explained: "If we purchase a new company, we purchase, first and foremost, new expertise. If a company with the expertise we need is in Ukraine, we will see this as an impetus to negotiate with it."

Dmytro Zozulia, M&A Deputy Chairman of the Board of MHP: "Ukraine should be a player in the global food market. The next step is to consolidate domestic food producers to create an ecosystem that will be able to compete in global markets."

In his opinion, Ukraine has a large number of industries with strong export potential. However, foreign markets need to be entered as a united force and bring products with added value.