Last week, a World Bank mission worked in Kyiv, collaborating with the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, covering several key areas.
The mission focused on implementing the “Sustainable, Inclusive, and Environmentally Balanced Entrepreneurship” program (RISE). Last year, Ukraine signed agreements with the World Bank worth $593 million USD, of which $236 million has already been received into the state budget. According to the plan for 2025, Ukraine expects to receive another $300 million under the RISE program, provided it successfully meets the performance indicators set by the program’s conditions.
“This week, we made practical progress in coordination with partners. In particular, we moved closer to launching the grant component of the RISE program — $10 million from the World Bank’s Ukraine Recovery, Reconstruction, and Transformation Fund (URTF). This will allow more resources to be directed towards the development of SMEs, support for the green transition, improvement of the business climate, digital transformation, and expansion of Ukrainian enterprises’ access to external markets. The program aimed at achieving RISE results will operate in Ukraine until 2027, supporting the implementation of the SME Strategy. Together with the Ministry of Finance, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund, the Export Promotion Office, UKEF, and other partners, we are making every effort to implement it,” said the First Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Oleksii Sobolev.
Additionally, the parties discussed the preparation of Ukraine’s new industrial strategy. The focus is on aligning it with export and investment strategies, which also fall under the ministry’s responsibility. The common goals of these initiatives are to form the foundation for Ukraine’s future economy.
“We are building a resilient, competitive economy, and for this, a comprehensive industrial strategy focused on practical tools is needed. Ukrainian businesses require stable support to recover and grow — both small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large ones. At the same time, we must maintain a balance between transparency, environmental standards, and localization. A promising area is dual-use technologies — particularly the production of drones capable of serving both defense and civilian sectors of the economy,” emphasized Deputy Minister of Economy Andrii Teliupa.
The parties also explored opportunities to deepen cooperation in corporate governance and privatization. Representatives of the World Bank and the Ministry of Economy agreed that reforms in this area must be fully integrated into the overall economic growth strategy and promote the transformation of the public sector economy into a more efficient model.
During the mission, issues of improving public procurement were also discussed. World Bank experts prepared recommendations for improving competition laws, as well as using customs and tax service data for deeper analysis of the dynamics of Ukrainian business before and after the start of the full-scale war.
