The USAID program “Competitive Economy of Ukraine” has tripled its grant support for Ukrainian processing enterprises to $11 million.
This was reported by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine.
“Given the large number of applications and significant interest from processing industry enterprises, a decision was made to increase the amount of grant funding,” the statement said.
The total grant program funding for the support of innovative transformation and development of Ukrainian enterprises will be $11 million, and within the program, approximately 75 grants will be awarded (previously it was planned to be around 25 grants).
“The development of Ukrainian producers and attracting investments to the real sector is a priority for the Ministry of Economy. Our strategy is the processing and development of high-tech industries. We need to increase the share of processing in the GDP structure from the current 10% to at least 20%, as there are no examples of successful raw material states. On the contrary, raw material dependence often signifies poverty,” noted First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko.
In particular, the grants will support businesses in activities that contribute to the production of innovative products, modernization of production, reduction of manual labor combined with the creation of more qualified jobs, increased efficiency in the use of other resources, import substitution in the Ukrainian market and/or export of Ukrainian products to fill niches previously occupied by Russian and Belarusian products, localization of production of goods needed for reconstruction.