Polish government announces $100m fund to support Ukrainian startups
2014-03-26 16:39:51
Poland is to put $100 million (300 million Zloty) into supporting small Ukrainian companies, which will obviously include tech companies by implication, and allow more Ukrainian companies to list on its stock exchange.
“We do this to support the new Ukrainian industry, new business and build a new middle class,” said President Bronislaw Komorowski reports Polish newspaper Gazeta.
BGK, Poland’s only state-owned bank, together with a private bank PKO BP and other institutions will establish the special new fund. PKO BP already Ukraine as Kredobank.
The new fund will employ the experience gained from the cooperation of the Polish-American Enterprise Fund supporting entrepreneurship, said Olgierd Dzieko?ski, a Polish government minister. That fund was used in the early part of the century to help Poland emerge economically from its post-Soviet experience.
The plan is to strengthen small businesses and startups and allow them to list on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, where several Ukrainian companies are already listed.
Interestingly, Polish government statements made a point of spelling out that listing in Poland “secured the Polish company against the risk of corruption, which is still present in Ukraine.”
Komorowski went on: “We do it just to support the new Ukrainian industry, new business and build a new middle class. This is something that is beyond the captive structure of the economy, which is now in the hands of the oligarchs.”
Clearly this new support from a strong near neighbour to Ukraine will be of some solace to a country wracked by political strife over the recent weeks.