Oschadbank Reports Almost 500 Export Contracts Under New USAID Program

Small and medium-sized enterprises seeking to enter external markets have reportedly signed about 500 export contracts as part of the “My Export” program.

The initiative is a collaboration between Oschadbank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ukraine’s leading private postal service Nova Poshta, and the Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office. The latter belongs to the National Project for Entrepreneurship Development “Diia.Business” under Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

The “My Export” program is one of many created following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to help businesses survive war conditions and grow despite the uncertainty.

Ukrainian companies that have an ambition to enter new markets abroad can take part and benefit from zero tariffs on currency account servicing and currency exchange operations by Oschadbank, discounts on international shipping, an exporter educational program from USAID and the state, as well as legal consulting from KPMG in Ukraine.

After half a year of operation, the overall sum of export contracts signed under the program is estimated to be Hr.1.6 billion ($40 million), according to management board member Nataliia Butkova-Vitvitska. The most common export countries are understood to include China, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Turkey.

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“Sixty percent of Ukraine’s exports are food products. Despite the successful work of Ukraine’s new grain corridor without Russia, Ukraine still hasn’t returned to pre-war [2021] levels of exports and imports,” Butkova-Vitvitska said.

Entering new markets is “expensive, uncertain and unclear”, Head of Oschadbank’s supervisory board Volodymyr Lavrenchuk summed up during a panel discussion.

Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office Anna Milenina advises entrepreneurs to “be frank with yourself and your contracts,” warning that it is all too common to believe that doing business in Ukraine is similar to doing business in other countries.

Despite the ongoing EU accession process, many Ukrainian companies are still keen to expand into Asian and African markets rather than in Europe. One such reason lies in complex EU regulations, especially for agricultural products as a part of protection measures for local farmers.

Despite a variety of tools provided by international financial institutions to help Ukrainian companies, entrepreneurs still favor the state’s “5-7-9%” credit program as the best means of obtaining finance. This is according to the CEO of Zavod Preform, Denys Myrhorodskyi, who spoke during the panel discussion. The program entails reduced interest rate loans in the national currency through state compensation to the levels of 5, 7 and 9 percent per annum.