Sweden has wide range of machine building industry important for Ukraine’s reconstruction – Shurma

"Sweden primarily has very good engineering technologies, not only military technologies. Moreover, there is a very wide range of heavy engineering: mining equipment, classic trucking equipment, everyone knows such brands as Volvo. There are good electronic devices: Electrolux, world-famous ABB company – electrical engineering. Therefore, Sweden has the entire range of machine building, a full portfolio, which, as a matter of fact, is extremely important and critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Because, first of all, we will need a huge amount of equipment both for infrastructure, as well as for the construction of new enterprises and factories," Deputy Head of the President’s Office Rostyslav Shurma said this during the United News nationwide telethon.

He noted that usually this equipment is sold not only as engineering solutions, but together with financial packages provided through export credit agencies.

"And this is one of the issues that we raised with the Swedish side to really expand credit limits and launch programs of full-fledged cooperation and financing through export credit agencies," Shurma said.

He reminded that there were already positive examples of such cooperation, in particular with Italy and Japan.

"Actually, we want to implement the same experience with Sweden since there are a huge number of companies with good equipment such as Volvo, Sandvik, SKF, Alfa Laval, Atlas Copco and dozens of others, equipment that will be interesting for the reconstruction of Ukraine," Shurma said.

According to him, billions of dollars in aid are discussed, but the focus of the discussion during the latest visit was on the private sector.

"That is, specific private companies should make decisions on investments. And if we take the entire portfolio that we talked about, as well as some other segments, in particular, I would also like to dwell on ‘green metallurgy’ because it is Swedish companies like SSAB, H2 Green Steel that were pioneers in the world, they were the first to announce plans to switch to green steel production technology. This is potentially billions of dollars. Accordingly, our task is to create such conditions that it would be profitable for these companies to enter Ukraine," said the Deputy Head of the President’s Office.

According to him, the Swedish side should make certain political decisions for this at the first stages.

"We can see that there are several dozen directions and projects worth 5, 6, 7, 8 billion euros. But we will talk about concrete numbers when there are concrete projects," Shurma said.

According to him, Ukraine may be interesting to Western partners precisely from the point of view of large resources: territory, qualifications of people, mineral deposits, in particular, such as lithium and graphite. The issue of logistics is not the last factor, he added.

As reported, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky made a working visit to Sweden on August 19.