The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development supports efforts to privatise stakes in Ukraine's banks and other nationalised industries and could be willing to provide financing for those efforts, its president said.
Ukraine aims to raise around 13 billion hryvnia ($295 million) from privatisations this year, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said this month, to bolster a budget strained by more than four years of war with Russia and help fund reconstruction.
Kyiv is seeking buyers for some key assets, including two large profitable banks, Sense Bank and Ukrgasbank, as it looks to reduce state dominance of the sector and attract foreign capital. The state controls more than 50% of the banking sector.
"Depending on who the buyers are, we could provide some financing for future privatisations," EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso said, without referring specifically to the banks.
Renaud-Basso said there was "quite a lot of interest" from investors in a tender to operate two terminals at Chornomorsk port in the Odesa region, launched in December.
Under the 40-year concession, a private investor would operate and modernise the port's facilities. Chornomorsk has been hit occasionally by airstrikes in recent months as Russia targets Black Sea port infrastructure.
The EBRD and the IFC - the World Bank's private-sector lending arm - are supporting the government in structuring the concession and overseeing the tender process.
In another effort to foster private investment, the EBRD is working with the National Bank of Ukraine, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission and the Ministry of Finance on securities market reform, with the aim of creating a vertically integrated stock exchange that handles clearing and depository activities.
Legislation is being drafted, and the goal is to bring in a strategic investor to operate the platform, bank officials said.
The EBRD is also funding power projects following Russian attacks on electricity infrastructure. Renaud-Basso said it had a pipeline of funding for about 700 megawatts of renewable energy.
It is also financing protective shelters for electricity transformers. Of around 135 key installations nationwide, about 118 are expected to be protected by the end of the year, she said.
