After centuries of roaring across oceans and colonizing lands, some Dutchmen now feel bored in the country of more than 16 million people and crave exploring new frontiers.
As Ukraine eased entry requirements, some 200 Dutch businessmen embarked on a journey, which for many has turned out successful.
The destination wasn’t completely alien to some as western parts of Ukraine have once been a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire together with Holland.
“The level of job satisfaction from working in the emerging market like Ukraine is much higher than in western countries,” said Dirck Smits van Oyen, 51. He first came to Kyiv in 1999 as a commercial director for Belgian Interbrew, which purchased Chernihivske breweries.
“We would change a label or a shape of the bottle and see an immediate spike in sales. Those addicted to growing margins can’t go back to the mature markets,” he said.
And so he didn’t. After four years with a Belgium beer holding he turned down a promotion, which would have taken him back to Holland. Instead, Smits van Oyen set up Promarketing, a consultancy that teaches western standards of marketing and sales to Ukrainian companies.
“Ukrainians are traditionally strong in IT and engineering and they are good in finance, but a commercial niche, which appeared here only 20 years ago, is underdeveloped,” he explained his business choice.
Among his first and most ambitious projects was helping Ukraine’s government to win Euro 2012 bid to host a football championship.
In 2004, he drafted a grand plan for UEFA but neither Poles nor Ukrainians had faith in it, said Smits van Oyen. But when two nations were shortlisted together with Italy and the tandem of Hungary and Croatia, Ukrainians started to see an opportunity.
“Maybe we were a little arrogant, but we basically tried to convince UEFA that they would be stupid not to give a football championship to Ukraine and Poland that together have 85 million people,” he said.
Promarketing consultants didn’t lie about Ukraine’s ailing infrastructure, Soviet-built stadiums and insufficient hotels. Instead, they presented it as a manageable business opportunity, which would benefit the participating countries and its visitors in the long term.
“The fact that the heads of UEFA’s inspection mission and of the safety and security department were Dutchmen also helped,” he noted smiling.
Another Dutchman in Ukraine, Joop Allers, can’t wait to attend the games in 2012. Allers, 30, is a partner in a couple of small businesses in Ukraine.
For Allers, moving to Ukraine was his first professional adventure, and he has no regrets about it. He first came to Ukraine in 2004 at the age of 23, just before graduating from university.
“I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “Europeans were eyeing Ukraine because of the Orange Revolution and Eurovision. There were not many foreigners in the country at that time.”
Struggling with learning the language and making friends in the beginning, he started a gentlemen’s club where Dutch expatriates could meet every month to talk about work and life in a casual atmosphere.
Joop Allers (Courtesy)
With a Swedish partner, they opened a business consultancy, which with time grew into a recruitment agency Clarus.
“In the Netherlands, the market is saturated with human resource companies. But here, it’s possible to make big steps,” he said adding that the greatest value of Ukraine for him and other Dutch is that every day in this country is not the same.
Ukraine–Netherlands highlights:
Direct foreign investment: $3,9 billion (9.7 percent of total FDI in Ukraine)
Trade turnover: $1,8 billion
Dutch export: $1,2 billion
Dutch import: $460 million
Kingdom of Netherlands:
Government type: constitutional monarchy
Location: Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between Belgium and Germany
Population: 16,8 million
Ethnic groups, in percent: Dutch 80.7, European 5, Indonesian 2.4, Turkish 2.2, Surinamese 2, Moroccan 2
Languages: Dutch (official), Frisian (official)
Capital: Amsterdam
GDP (purchasing power parity): $680,4 billion in 2010
GDP – per capita (PPP): $40,500 in 2010
Industries: agroindustries, metal and engineering products, electrical machinery and equipment, chemicals, petroleum, construction, microelectronics, fishing
Sources: Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine, CIA fact book Kyiv Post staff writer Katya Grushenko can be reached at [email protected]
