US and Ukraine to launch minerals fund by year’s end
Photo: Yulia Svyrydenko, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
An investment fund created under the Ukraine-United States minerals agreement is expected to start operating by the end of the year, according to Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy.
On Wednesday, June 4, Svyrydenko met with the US. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Development Finance Corporation, which will be a partner in the fund. The parties "discussed very concrete steps how to make this fund operational during this year."
"So we plan to have the first board meeting of this fund in July and we will discuss what will be the seed capital to start operating this fund. And actually, too, we should adopt the investment strategy for this fund for the next few years," she added.
Minerals deal
Kyiv and Washington planned to sign the agreement on February 28, but due to a skirmish in the White House, this did not happen. Later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Washington had offered Ukraine a new major minerals deal. At the same time, Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak argued that the new agreement was more of a commercial nature and significantly limited Ukraine's rights.
As Zelenskyy noted, Kyiv would not agree to an agreement that would threaten Ukraine's accession to the European Union or contain debts to the US for past assistance.
Eventually, Ukraine and the US signed an agreement to establish a US-Ukraine investment fund on May 1. On May 8, the Verkhovna Rada ratified the agreement, and a couple of days later, Zelenskyy signed the law.
