A delegation of German entrepreneurs arrived in Kyiv on March 21 for talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.
“We’re on a fact-finding mission,” said Michael Harms, manager of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations of the German Economy. “We’re going to discuss specific instruments by which we can strengthen our cooperation.”
Harms came to Kyiv with a delegation of German companies from the chemical, mechanical engineering, trade and information technology sectors.
The delegation is also to meet with Borys Lozhkin, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Investment Council.
“We want to propose that we do even more to make Ukraine a more popular investment location within the European Union and in Germany,” Harms said.
Harms sees room for improvement.
“From the Ukrainian side, I would wish for better follow up on the topics we’re addressing, and I think they are certain capacities within the Ukrainian administration for improving this follow-up,” he said.
After three years of crisis in Ukraine, German-Ukrainian foreign trade had clearly started to recover in 2016, with recent figures from the German Federal Statistical Office confirming the trend. Total trade between the two countries increased by 17.5 percent, to 5.4 billion euros.
“After two years of severe recession, Ukraine is back as a growth market and interest of the German economy is slowly growing,” said Wolfgang Büchele, the chairman of Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations of the German Economy.
The March 21 meeting is the second top-level round of business talks between Ukraine and Germany in the last two months: Poroshenko and representatives of German companies met at the beginning of February in the German capital of Berlin.
