Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2016-09-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the opportunities for inward investment to the Ukraine by UK companies.

Lord Price

There are a number of areas of potential interest for UK investors in Ukraine, including Agriculture, Energy and Infrastructure.

Ukraine has recently been moving up the World Bank Doing Business survey (now 83, up 5 places from 2015) but it continues to lag on the Corruption perception index (142 out of 175 countries ranked).

Ukraine’s Government is keen to attract foreign investors and is taking steps towards improving the business climate and the UK Government is providing assistance e.g. with the recent establishment of an Anti-corruption Bureau and Business Ombudsman which has been positively received by business leaders. But more still needs to be done.