Ukraine will finance construction of runway at Ivano-Frankivsk airport - president

Ukraine is ready to invest in the development of the Ivano-Frankivsk airport, but not immediately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

"The runway is the property of the state. The airport's owners would have to build it, and the state would return this money in a certain period of time. [...] Now we don't have $40 million to build the runway in a year and a half. We can divide this amount by three years, but neither the owners nor Ivano-Frankivsk region will wait," he said at a meeting at the airport on Friday, August 2.

He called on representatives of Skorzonera, the firm that owns the airport, to agree to such conditions.

"These are normal conditions because you have a very difficult concession agreement. We sign an investment agreement and a guarantee of return for what belongs to the state, what the state has to build. You build, and we return. That would be honest. There is another option. You build, and we return nothing," Zelensky said.

Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport is owned by the community of Prykarpattia. In 2010, Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Council transferred the airport on concession terms to Skorzonera.

op