Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Andrew Weiss. I'm Vice President for Studies here at Carnegie. It's great to see so many people gathered here today for this discussion about President Zelensky's first 100 days, a couple ground rules before we get started. I'm sure all of you are carrying a cell phone. It would be great if you could please mute the cell phone so it doesn't go off while we're live streaming this event. It's a real honor for Carnegie to be partnering with our friends at the EU mission here in Washington to present and our partners at the Ukrainian Embassy to present such a great panel. To my immediate left is the Ukrainian Minister of Finance, Aksana Markarova. To her left is the Deputy Director General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission, Katerina Makarna. To her left is Vladislav Rashkovan, who is IMF's representative to the IMF. And then at the far end, last but not least, is the Ukrainian Minister of Economy, Timofey Milobanov. So what we've done in terms of ground rules is each of the speakers is going to talk briefly at the beginning, to talk a little bit about how the reform agenda looks, what's been accomplished so far, what important work remains ahead, and then I'll start a conversation with them and then very much hope to draw all of you into that conversation in a minute. As they say in American political life, what a difference a year makes.  I don't know if we would have had such a stellar panel. People would have been talking about the election campaign and the uncertainties and the constraints on reform and that nothing can get done because it has to go through the rata and we would have basically piled up political constraints. It's now a completely different political environment in Kyiv and arguably in Washington. We can come to that later. But you have what is basically emerging as a presidential republic in Ukraine where President Zelensky's unchallenged authority and popularity is remarkable, especially compared to the conditions that faced his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, who we all know became extremely unpopular in his later years. You see a rata, which is largely favorable, or at least there's a window of opportunity for it to remain favorable to the president's reform agenda. You see a Ukrainian public, which has placed its trust and its support in President Zelensky, so average Ukrainians when they are polled, including most recently, about which political party supports your interests or expresses your concerns best. Those ratings have never been lower for all political parties in Ukraine, so it basically creates a landscape where the average person in Ukraine has placed their trust and their faith in President Zelensky. So it's a remarkable change just in the space of a few months. Finally, obviously, is the U.S. domestic political context, which I assume is very much on people's minds at the moment and we can come back to that. What is remarkable is that Ukraine in the face of all of the challenges of the war with Russia, the impact of trying to build and reestablish its sovereignty at gunpoint, has stabilized its economy. Growth right now is, in 2018, I think was 3.3%. Year on year, the IMF World Economic Outlook, which was released a couple of days ago, is projecting 3% growth for 2019 and 2020. So it is a very different Ukrainian economy, but obviously international support, particularly from key Western partners, including the United States, remains critical. So anyways, it's really a privilege to host such a distinguished panel, and to see such a large crowd here to listen to them. Why don't I turn things over to Minister of Finance, Markarova, and we can dig into the substance from there. So welcome, Madam Minister. Thank you, and thank you very much for such a big interest to Ukraine. A year really makes a difference, and we have entered this year a new political cycle in Ukraine with the new president, new Rada, and the new technocratic government with two people staying, including me, from the previous one, but the majority of people are new. It was a great pleasure this year to read the global economic outlook issued by the IMF, where Ukraine is, probably for the first time, is among the out-performers, rather than countries that are in the risk zone. So with the global economy slowing down, we see that Ukraine is moving ahead and using every opportunity to actually show better results in pretty much everything. So if you look at the growth numbers, I mean, the growth is accelerating, the inflation is down to single digits, the debt to GDP, our remarkable achievements because of a very prudent fiscal policy good coordination with the monetary policy and also the fiscal consolidation and active debt management, we decreased the debt to GDP from 81% to remarkable expected below 55% this year. In a sense, a lot has been done in order to achieve this macroeconomic stability, but the new government appointed on August 29 has two major aims in front of us. One is to preserve the macroeconomic stability, but the second is even more challenging is how on the basis of this macroeconomic stability to accelerate growth. And the first two months of work of the government, not fully in two months, we were able to adopt together with the parliament the majority of draft laws which were discussed, dreamt about for the past three years. NCTS authorized economic operators, all kinds of laws to support the creation of the new tax service in Ukraine, new custom service in Ukraine. Everything, the new anti-corruption port started operations in September and the first cases are already being reviewed. So everything that before when we discussed with the IMF and the World Bank and other international partners that was a discussion, now it's already a done item. All that improvements and all the achievements would not be possible without, on the one hand, a very strong bipartisan support in the United States, but on the other hand, very, very strong support from the European Union. And it has been supported in from the budget point of view, the direct budget support. It has been very deep profound support with experts and everything else. So in a lot of areas, we have leapfrogged actually and implemented not what it has to be implemented during the 10 years, but essentially took the best practices and just did it in Ukraine, in the banking sector and in others. So I think Ukraine now, and one of our slogans, is the Ukraine that is not only preparing to continue to outperform, but is one of the last frontier markets that has all the fundamentals to grow faster and to present not only to investors inside and outside of Ukrainian businesses, but also to Ukrainian population in new level of services and new standards of public governance. So we, usually I'm in the Ministry of Finance is more conservative, but this is the times when I think we know that there is a lot of work ahead, a quote in Paul Thompson today, who said Ukraine achieved remarkable success, but still more has to be done in order and structural reform that will generate higher growth. We know what to do, we are prepared to do it, we have a very capable team to do it, and we have the support of our partners in that. Thank you, Madam Minister. Ms Matarina. Thank you very much. Well, first, a huge thanks to Carnegie for on a very short notice organizing an event during a very busy week, and we really appreciate it. And having two ministers actually take time of their agenda and before getting on a plane coming to speak, I think it's really important because when reading the newspaper, and I know I'm gonna be a little provocative, but when reading the newspaper in the US or listening to the talk shows, sometimes Ukraine is used as a theater prop for a drama that really has fundamentally nothing to do with the country. And what bothers me is that when the word Ukraine and the word corruption is used every day in every media, then it sort of sticks. And I think it's really important to actually talk about Ukraine with more depth and more nuance than that. And also turn the word corruption into the anti-corruption efforts that the country has done and that have been really important over the last few years. And I very much agree with Andrew, but you mentioned that a year is a long time. I would even say half a year is a long time. I was just talking, we just had a meeting with Vice President of the European Commission who is in charge of the macro financial assistance. And I spoke to my colleague afterwards saying, look, you know, when we were about to push the first tranche of the macro financial assistance, we were saying, is there ever going to be a second tranche? Is there going to be a reform agenda after the elections? After the, it was not clear at all. And this is half a year ago. It was not clear at all. And now we were discussing with the minister actually, there is only one item that still needs to go through the process in the radar. It's already there. It's going to go to the second reading. And that's the last item that is actually stopping us from having a second disbursement. So I think it's important to take the time at around the hundred days of, since the President Zelensky is coming to office to take stock of what has been done. What are the challenges? Because the challenges are certainly there. I always tell my Ukrainian friends that doing structural reforms is like biking up a hill. And you can't stop midway because you don't stay there. You slide back. But frankly, what the new team has done and with ministers like Mr. Milovanov, like Mrs. Markarova and others, Foreign Minister Pristayko was just talking to the Foreign Affairs Council of EU ministers on Monday of this week. Is really gives us very strong encouragement to working very closely with an important partner of the EU. So let me just say two things on concrete reforms. I started with the word anti-corruption. Not only we now have the institutions that we were calling for that will be able to prosecute the wrongdoing and the corruption that has already taken place, but what Ukraine has done quite remarkably is actually closing the space for corruption to even occur, whether it was through gas tariff equalization and closing the spigot for making fabulous riches on differentiated prices of gas, whether it was cleaning the banking sector, whether it was the introduction of public procurement electronically, whether it was eliminating the manipulation of exchange rate by letting the Hryvna float and actually Chatham House of the UK has estimated that 6% of GDP a year has been saved. Every year Ukraine saves 6% of GDP on the measures that eliminated corruption. And so Oksana spoke about very good results and imagine 6% helps from closing corruption and yet this is a country let's not forget that is in a state of war and spends upwards of 5% of GDP on defense a year. So we really must say that we have a close partner to the European Union in not an easy geopolitical situation, not an easy economic situation, but really congratulations to what has been done in the last 100 days, but also in the reforms previously. And I'm glad we have a chance to talk about it here and also to perhaps dispel another piece of not so truthful information. Actually the European Union is the largest partner and donor to Ukraine. I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I thought in another bubble called Brussels, but in this bubble I think it's useful to say that upwards of 10 billion euros, I think close to 15 billion euros since the revolution in Maidan and for us it's an associate country and a very important partner. That was so minister Milovanov, do you wanna jump in? Yes, absolutely, thank you very much for the opportunity. I completely agree with all of you that the climate has changed, there's evidence to that. Let me just name a couple of examples to be credible. One is the people like Aksana behind the government. The second one is that, let's say land reform. That is the reform which has been prepared for years, if not decades, the moratorium I think is, there's since 2001 or something like that, right? That's been 18 years, every year the government has been, and the parliament, has been extending for a year a moratorium, basically a ban on the ability of seven million people to sell their land plots. That created a shadow market, that created all kinds of schemes of long-term leases and that market is available to people who operate in Ukraine, basically not the most transparent market, frankly, with suppressed competition, suppressed price and suppressed investments, suppressed tax revenues for local communities, all kinds of bad things. And of course, there are all these interests who have been benefiting from that, and it's maybe 10,000 people or 40,000 people, very concentrated interests. I've been given a task within the four weeks of being in office to submit a law to the parliament on removing this moratorium and allowing trade. I've received zero pressure from anyone in the country, either politically or even publicly through challenges. I mean, of course, there's political discussions and people against that and Twitter and Facebook but nothing which prevented me from submitting to the cabinet meeting, two weeks into the office, the draft of the bill and the cabinet passed it and sent it to the parliament on the 25th of September. So something which was impossible to do for decades, now is in the parliament. Now, that has not been passed. Every step in the parliament is a challenge. Today, earlier today, the Agricultural Committee of the Parliament approved this draft to bring it to the floor for the first reading. And the opposition has staged protests and pushed back and then the committee will reconvene next week and so on and so forth. So every step in the legal procedure in the parliament is being challenged using legal grounds, using the rules of the parliament and rightly so by the opposition. This is fine. This is fine, that's democracy. There should be a process. I'm pretty confident we'll get it through. Our original bill is extremely liberal. It basically has no restrictions. There is support for those who don't have access to the capital markets with the focus on small and medium farmers, with the focus on food security, rural development but those instruments have to be developed. But it's really essentially as correct as it can get. In response to this, in response to this process, the land lease prices in shadow market in some areas have already doubled over the months. So already some of those owners in Ukraine who have suffered for almost two decades now start to benefit from an expectation of competition. Another example, geocardass related to the very same reform. That's a register in which the land deals are recorded. And that's the source of abuse. You know, you have to pay a little bit of a bribe to get things moved there and then land is disappearing occasionally. And they have been telling us for years that there are only 20% of land registered and they don't know what's going on. Apparently firing 10 people can bring the rate of the land registered in that disaster from 20% to 70, countrywide, national. And open it up and put online all the deeds which are being registered including the prices. In the matter of two or three weeks, add restrictions from the waterways and start adding forestry. And that can be done within three or four weeks. So these are a couple of examples that demonstrate that the situation starts feeling like there is an equilibrium change. There is a structural change. Now, of course, everyone is watching business and consumer confidence is up, you know, all time high. Indexes are almost 100% domestically. However, that has not yet translated into investment and rightly so. You know, there should be some more action and some more consistency before it becomes clear that this is a sustainable change. But I can guarantee to you that I, in my capacity, as long as I'm in the government, I will do everything that I can in order to move Ukraine forward this time. This is only one of the reforms. I'm also responsible just to give you a sense of my portfolio and Aksana has a similar portfolio and our Ministry of Energy has a similar portfolio and infrastructure. But I have also a portfolio of privatization, for instance. So I've sent 800 companies over the last two weeks for privatization. Of course, I still have to get approval of the line ministries and they're resisting a little bit. There's some sabotage and things like that. But I expect that I'll send 500 companies for privatization within the next two months. We have changed the leadership of State Property Fund and those guys have built up a team, project management team, and so privatization is moving, at least small and medium. The problem with big privatization, of course, there are all these poison pills attached and that will be case by case and the companies will have to be cleaned up if, again, this change is sustainable, if it's not one-time shock for three months, right? So that will take time but the opportunities are there already. So I already unblocked, I think, four companies for big privatization, which have been, the fifth one has been a little bit stolen. We will bring it back out of being stolen through the statute change but five companies which have been blocked for years now were ready for privatization. I have unblocked them and no one has said the word. It's just basically my decision. I sign it and it's done. Another area in which I expect much progress but it's more of a systemic reform. It's competition authority. We have to address two things with competition. We have too many monopolies but in some areas we should have monopolies. We're not trying to break up monopolies for the sake of breaking up but in some areas, of course, monopolies are detrimental for development but there's also a political economy aspect to it that monopolies are the source of power for vested interests eventually and also that trickles down in political campaigning. It's a political economy issue. So going back, that's why land reform is important because we're gonna take away power from those officials who run state land under the table. We have companies, state-owned companies which basically lease land out and generate losses. I didn't know it's what's possible. To lease land out and pay for it but it is possible to structure the contracts that way. So that's being stopped as we speak. And then labor markets. We need to have a labor market reform because we have a lot of mismatch. We have high unemployment, highly educated force, labor force. We have eight or nine percent. We have a lot of vacancies. Companies like Met-Invest or other metallurgical companies or whatever, agricultural companies they're complaining they cannot get reliable workers who are trained. So we have to take that seriously as a macroeconomic issue and move people from the market which is losing vacancies but have a lot of unskilled. It's still blue color but it's kind of the type of skill. Business ethics. We have to move those people into the part of the labor market with the excess of vacancies and basically mismatch. And finally, export trade, international trade, export promotion, investment. We have a cessation agreement with the European Union. We need to get things done and we have just discussed that we're moving forward at amazing speed. So I think that's just a question of getting things through. I'm pretty sure that this will continue. There is a very powerful team of young professionals, maybe majority of them are inexperienced politically but that's fine. I am the fourth oldest minister in the government. Yeah. Okay. And I think they're doing great. They've worked 24-7 and I think one day Ukraine will change. One day. Whether it's now or 20 years from now, I don't know. But it's gonna happen like that. There'll be a little bit crazy in good sense government of outsiders who are professionals and nationally successful in their respective areas. They will come in and start changing things. So I have decided to assume that this time is now and I will put all my effort towards that goal. Because if you don't believe that the change is possible, the change will never happen. So that's our attitude and I hope we will be able to convince you over the months to come that we're serious and there is a real change this time. And if we fail, you will be the judge and we'll try again as the country next time. Thank you, Mr. Manos. Thank you. Mr. Rashko. You know, I speak with all these three people so often so I don't have anything to add. Because they already said that. You know, moreover, maybe I'm a little bit be, you know, I'll say too much speaking, but they were also speaking on my speaking points which I was preparing for them before somehow. But anyway, I have still have three messages. The first one is that I strongly believe that this is a unique chance for Ukraine now. And why? It's not only because we have the youngest and very enthusiastic government led with a very, with young and very enthusiastic prime minister. And it's very professional team, you know. Not only, not only because we have the new president. And not only we have the parliament which supports the president and supports the government in executing reforms. I think the very important thing is today that IMF, which I represent, is ready to support this government in what they plan to do. And this is, I mean, different from the usual times. I will try to explain it a little bit. So I have this kind of metaphor, you know, when the country goes through the forest, the dark forest of the poverty or the wrongdoings and get to the somehow, to the trap or to the hole, you know, in this forest, you know, when they start shouting or calling someone, usually there is only one organization which comes to help them with IMF. And the IMF usually saying is what IMF is doing, IMF gives you the robber and says you need to climb from the hole, from the strap. IMF is not doing for you that, for the countries. IMF can explain how to rob, in general. But when you go out from the hole, the IMF usually say, in order to get from this dark forest, you need to go this direction. And usually, in all the previous years, you know, the governments actually were going out from the hole, and when IMF was coming to them and saying, okay, now there is no need already of advice. We know where to go. And immediately start going to another direction and in three, four, five years, getting to the new hole, again calling IMF. So today is a different situation. First, there is no hole in which, or trap where Ukraine is now. Ukraine is growing and IMF is still ready to support. There is no excuse for the no political will or difficult political landscape or no enough people. There are people there. And there are also the partners like European Union, like US, like IMF, EBRD, World Bank, IFC, AB, who are ready to support this government. And I think this is a unique chance. And I would, if I may say like this, so the government now goes intuitively or maybe not intuitively, but professionally to the right direction. And even start running there in the right direction and IMF is ready to help. First, the second message is how IMF is ready to help. You know, and here, I mean, many people are focusing, when I give lectures somewhere and I say about what IMF is, everybody first say that IMF is about lending. For sure is lending, you know. But lending is not the core, maybe what Ukraine needs. You know, Ukraine really needs, when you need to work with monopolies, you know, how to help with monopolies, what to do with them, how to address this issue or how to address the privatization because IMF has the experience and the knowledge and I mean, pretty wide looking at the 189 countries where we work with and seeing them for many, many years and already having seen a lot of the patterns of the behaviors of countries. So we really provide the technical advisory. I remember, you know, in the previous years, the IMF sent six missions to help the tax administration to reform. And when I saw some people coming back from these missions, they were desperate, you know, because, hey, first, there is a new head of tax administration who already said they already completed the reform. Now there is, you know, Sergei Verlanov and Max Neffyodoff and customs. They're so appreciating and appreciative to the reforms, to the advice there. The partners even probably are not on that speed to help them because they really want to, they demand a lot of the things and want to do things right in the right way. And again, under the axana for sure, the leadership there. So the fund is helping not only with money, for sure, we will have the new program, but also with the technical advisory. And for sure, also through surveillance, because we see Ukraine not only when we give tranches, we see Ukraine in the different periods of the year, looking at the different macro indicators, looking at how the central bank is working, but not only looking at how a statistical bureau is working, et cetera. So again, but if you speak about the program, how the fund is ready to support, axana said already about that. So we have actually the three major targets in the new program. For sure, we're still in the negotiations and discussion and I cannot disclose you the details, but in fact, the first one is to maintain the macro and financial stability, which have been achieved during the previous years. And as Paul Thompson said today, the program, the last program, the SBA, but also the EFA program is considered successful for Ukraine because they helped to achieve the macro and financial stability. And this is already the good fund for the further growth. But again, it's not enough. So to reach the macro stability on the fiscal policies, on budgetary policies, on monetary policies, on energy policies, on debt policies, we are working this, these are our core mandate and we have a lot of the expertise there. But it's not enough because if Ukraine will grow 3.2%, we will simply not be able to cash our regional peers, which is like a Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, et cetera. So we will not be, even if we grow on the same pace like they do, the gap will remain. So we need really to grow faster. And again, the unique situation, the fund is ready to support the government to reach these 5, 7% which the prime minister and the government are aspiring for. So therefore we are there to help us with structural reforms. And the land reform is considered a very big step forward. And Timofey didn't say that he has a great team now in the ministry, great deputies, great departments. And this is very important that it's not only Timofey. And I just want you to, he's a great guy, I know him for many years. But it's not about him, he is trying to build the institution for the ministry economy where you, I mean as investors, as researchers will be able to rely on not only on the personality of Timofey or Oksana. And because Oksana also is building the ministry as the central bank has done in the recent years. So the ministry is working also, for example on the forecast and how to price in the old reforms which are currently under development. How to price in them to the, factor in them to the economic growth. And this is, so it will be able to see how these like a 7% growth will come from in a way it will come from. But again, the structural reform, the privatization is a very important, you know, I remember, so I was a board member of the Chief School of Economics in the past where the Timofey was a president before. And I remember the research studies of 90s where it was a clear research of the students who were trying to distinguish the performance of the state enterprises versus the private ones or the privatized enterprises versus non-privatized enterprises. And all the researches for all the region was showing that state enterprises are less efficient, you know, and still this was in 90s and early 2000s. We again went through these 18, 19 years still keeping 3.5,000 state enterprises and 5,000 municipal enterprises. So we needed really to work there in order to privatize, in order to increase the efficiency, decrease the burden for the government and to bring the profit to the economy where the taxes will come and the taxes will finance the human development in the country. We will finance the infrastructure, we will create also the jobs in Ukraine and we will avoid that people will, our intellectual people will be the labor force for our neighboring countries and undermining our potential. So this is the second big focus for us is the structural reform. But the third one is also important. I think, and this is maybe I will be, will be a little bit provocative. Katarina said about the corruption and anti-corruption activities. And I strongly believe that what has been done in the recent years were incremental were very much important for decreasing the corruption in Ukraine. The problem is that the corruption, as for me, is a tool, is not a framework, is a tool for oligarchic model to manage the country. Because through money, through bribery, they tried in the past to bribe the government, the different officials on different levels, they bribe the regional elites, they corrupt the electoral process, they corrupted state enterprises, they were vested interests, they corrupted the state-owned banks, they corrupted the enforcement agencies, et cetera. So this is the system which used to work before. And this is, if we don't manage to break this system, and this is where the fund will look also through the monopolies, through the, through different instruments, how to address this. I think the 7% growth will be more challenging task for us than if we try to do it. Thanks. Let's dig in on that last point, because when I spoke to someone earlier today, who's a, I think, very credentialed friend of Ukraine, former government minister, he underlined that it is corruption and rule of law that are the biggest hurdle to getting the growth you want and getting the kind of support you want from the international community. Oligarchic system has been a problem since 91, it's not new, it's deeply entrenched. Is it beyond President Zelensky's capability, though, as a newcomer, as someone who doesn't have a huge team, as someone who is possibly facing vested interests who are just far more formidable and clever, is it achievable? Or is it a question of containing and kind of reducing the field for maneuver for the oligarchic system? So Madam Minister, I don't know you, or Minister Lovanov wants to touch that. I can start, I think, in order to decrease corruption significantly in any country, and Ukraine is no different here, there are two major categories of efforts that should be taken. First is prevent corruption and eliminate or decrease the space for corruption. And that's, I think, where we have been really successful in the past, and we will continue doing a lot going forward. It's opening the public information, starting from 2015 and we're opening more and more all information about the public finance, it has been my pet project, the e-data, all transactions of the treasury, open budget online, everything. It's opening the registries and making them communicate with each other so that we do have reliable data on everything. It's completely changing the procurement system through Prozor and essentially eliminating corruption or not eliminating it completely maybe, but fully first allowing the access for other companies and giving them tools to monitor the government and seek for it. So there are quite a number, it's the privatization that will also support it because eliminating the state-owned companies, especially in the areas where they shouldn't exist from to start with. It's opening information about the NP also of the state-owned banks, which we started together with EU, publishing already in the aggregate format for a year, but now we will move even faster and we'll disclose after the parliament will support us and we will take out the bank secrecy on this NP also of the state-owned banks so that the owners of the state-owned banks, the taxpayers will know the information about the assets. So all these efforts which we are multiplying now will allow us to eliminate the space for corruption in a lot of areas. Now what was missing in the past and that's why the reform of the law enforcement and judiciary is so important and the rule of law is when we have opened it or when we are showing it, are we or is the law enforcement doing enough to prosecute it? Are people punished based on this open information that is now open to the civil society, to the general public? That's why it's so important and that's why we see on the agenda of the new parliament the law which will restart and it's already adopted the National Anti-Corruption Prevention Agency which was supposed to be a very powerful tool but didn't become that of actually preventing corruption. That's why the law on judiciary which has been adopted two days ago when we were here which will start because the judicial reform only touched the Supreme Court and we already see improved decision-making from the Supreme Court but this is not enough. We all hear this horrible story about the courts of the first instance, second instance because again we have created the anti-corruption infrastructure, the Naboo anti-corruption prosecutor and the anti-corruption court that recently became operational. It's very important but it will only tackle the high level corruption. Now business and individuals in Ukraine all deserve the access to free and fair judiciary and that's what this new law of course it will take not even weeks or months to implement it will take time but it's a start. So is it possible, yes it is possible. Do we have enough capable new people including for example the new prosecutor general? Definitely we do and there are plans and there are even not only plans but adopted draft the legislation that calls for it. The question how successful we will be depends on how successful we all and general public and business associations will be in defending this right effort. So it's not up to Max Nifiodov to fight the corruption at the, not only up to Max Nifiodov to fight the corruption at the customs. It's not only up to Verlanov to fight the corruption at the tax. It's not only up to everyone in their areas. It's the general task for Ukraine to support compliant businesses, to support the good policies, good people to support the judicial reform and I think if we as a country realize that this is not for the government, this is not for the parliament, this is not for the president, this is for Ukraine then of course it's possible. Is it going to be easy? Definitely not. Because every good deed that we are doing is and every right direction in this area to eliminate the space to fight the corruption is taking out somebody's money, somebody's vested interest profit. So yes, it's not going to be easy but it's definitely possible. Thank you, Minister Milovanov. Yeah, I think the best communication strategy on credibility and on the corruption effort is arrests, prosecutions and court decisions which are credible. There are clearly cases that we should be able to pursue. It will take time and I think the public will see. I mean, we should not jeopardize the rule of law, we have to build it. But also shouldn't look for excuses that we need another three years to reform something else. There is a law enforcement system today and it's operational to an extent yet. It should be better, it could be better, but you know. So that's one side of story. If there's no serious, if the government is not serious about pursing, you know, through the court, through the prosecution system, violations of the law on corruption, then, you know, we can do all reforms. We won't, no one will believe us. But of course, that's, in some sense, treating the symptoms, right? That's a consequence, you know, we want to prevent, we want to change the institutions. That means governance. That means strengthening governance to national bank is a fantastic example where we have been able to resolve the problem of financing corruption. You know, the easiest way, that's what I was taught in my, you know, that's what I teach in my PhD course. You know, okay, I'm on leave now. On professional development leave from the University of Pittsburgh. So this is what I teach in macroeconomic in the political economy of macroeconomic. They're saying that the central bank is the easiest place to be corrupt. To make, you know, you basically issue refinance to commercial banks. Commercial banks issue loans that are structured for 15 years to go and, you know, risky loans. But that's the nature of business for the banks. And I'm sorry, the things have not worked out. We restructure them. You never actually have the moment of truly stealing something. It's just, you know, there's always a hope that NPA, a non-performing loan, will work out somehow until you write it off completely. But then it still, it's your decision. It may be somehow miraculously, tomorrow the business will reappear and pay back. So it's the easiest way, and that has been stopped in Ukraine. That's possible. I mean, billions of dollars have been channeled. We're not even talking about bankrupting banks. We're talking about refinancing being given out to shady businesses throughout the last 20 years. That has been stopped. So that's possible. Now the next source of major corruption is procurement. So that's the second, you know, if you want to do it large scale, then you steal money from the state through procurement. You bring your companies, which sell goods and services at excess prices. That has been tackled already for a while through Prozora. And there is improvement. Those 6% that Katrina, you were alluding to is an example. But that's, you know, far from enough. We see corruption moving to the municipal level. Away from the state owned enterprises. We see some other issues. Those have to be worked upon. We have this 3,600 something state owned enterprises, you know, just in my ministry, I think I have a thousand. So I need to form a thousand of governance boards. You know, they probably have to have five people in it. So I need to form 5,000 people somewhere. That will take me a decade, you know? To put board. There will be nothing left in those state owned enterprises. So we have to privatize, we have to move. So two things, you know, on the one side, we are actually very fast reforms on removing opportunities and keep doing the good job, you know, on removing structural, conceptual opportunities for corruption. But then we also need to support it with the persecution because the persecution would stop current leakage. It won't remove the opportunities, but it would at least slow down the current leakage. And it will also send a signal to the government that this is serious about this. Ms. Martin Law. Just very briefly on the oligarchic question and the capturing of the political process of the economy and the one sector we haven't touched yet, which is the media. We need to remember where we came from. I mean, in 2014, Ukraine was not only after decades of communism, but after 20 years of a buildup of the oligarchy rule. Where are we now? Are the oligarchs all gone? No, they're not. And this is actually something that is going to be a big challenge and also a big risk for the development. But they're in the opening of the economy and bringing competition into the economy and the various measures that we discussed here. Are they a lot poorer? Yes, they are. They're by all accounts much poorer than when they were six years ago. And I think that this level, this type of development is innate to a phase of development. Let's remember where was this country at the beginning of the 20th century? We are sitting in a Carnegie endowment, right? So we go to the times of Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt, I mean, right? The rubber bears at that time where there needed to be a phase of development, phase of opening of the economy, phase of trust-busting, phase of giving incentives to very rich people to then invest in the arts and in all of that. This is innate in any development. Whether you look at France, whether you look at Germany, whether you look at the US, the UK, and so Ukraine is on that path. Is it there yet? No, it will need to deal with the Kolomoisky and Ahmetovs, et cetera, of Ukraine. But I think that the measures that the ministers were talking about is a way to go there. Plus what needs to happen is to find whether it's through the entire trust legislation and enforcement, but a set of incentives for people to start actually behaving in a constructive tax-paying and open manner. The one area where I'm very concerned, I mentioned it, is the hold on the media. Because when you look at the media in Ukraine, print media fine, but when you look at the TVs, they are in the hands of very few people. And that's something that really needs to be, some competition will need to come into it. We are in fact discussing with USAID and other partners in Europe how to actually invest in an alternative media sources to be able to get out of this hold that the few people currently have on the media landscape. Thanks, Katerina, because I don't know who was guilty myself or you on that. But I wanted to get out from the corruption world, more to go to the oligarchy, because while we speak about the corruption or even in the banking sector, we should understand that the central bank was refinancing not the Mr. X or someone who is not known. These were the banks owned by oligarchs. And the central bank during 2014 to 2016, closing 108 banks, many of them, or there is no single foreign bank out of them, that the majority of the banks are either small banks owned by locals, local people, or the majority of them are owned by the oligarchs. And the same oligarchs who owned the media, who definitely affected the credibility of the central bank for media, attacking the central bank for different channels, saying that the job of the central bank is not good. And that's why probably the steal in the perception of people and the rating of different institutions, the people believe reading or watching these TVs or reading the newspapers, they think that this is the central bank brought these banks to bankruptcies and not the owners who just took money from the depositors, financed their own business, and did not return money to the banks. You know, when we speak about the procurement, I mean, the corruption was there historically in the public procurement, but we don't need to forget that in the period of Yanukovych, I think 30% of all the procurement are linked with his son, you know, or the companies are linked to his son, you know, who was winning all the contracts, willing to become the oligarch. So we really need to address the issue of the model, you know, and if you're using the words of Katerina, I'm completely not against that the Ukrainian, Ahmetov, Pinchuk, Kolomoisky, and others would become the new Carnegie Winderwanderbilt of Ukraine. I'm not holding my breath. Yeah, yeah, I'm not against of that. I'm slightly against that they would continue to be the old oligarchs of Ukraine. And I think this is where, you know, all of us need to work for the reforms, you know, to help with decreasing the space, for sure, work on the prevention, work on the enforcement, you know, and the IMF will support, you know, with a technical advisory on the right policies and support the government, who I'm sure took this seriously, especially fighting with monopolies in this area, in all the areas, including in the land. So quick question for Minister Markarov, can you talk a little bit about status of discussions with the IMF that's always kind of issue that people zero in on as a litmus test of the direction of reform? And then any slip-ups immediately create negative ripple effects. We're in one of those cycles now, as you would well know. Can you talk about what the outlook is? Yes, let me respond to that question about IMF and about also something else. With the IMF, this is the third program I am taking part in negotiating with the IMF. As we heard the previous two programs, EFS, and then the bridge standby that I have negotiated last year, because we knew it was going to be the end of the old political cycle beginning of the new, has been quite successful. So we are discussing now as soon as the new government was formed, we started discussing the new program. It's going to be a long-term program. Three years is what we are discussing right now. I cannot disclose some of the items that we are discussing, but definitely can say that we are moving in these discussions faster than what I remember and that what I participated last year and three years before when we were discussing the previous one. We have heard today again from Paul Thompson that the mission will come back to Kyiv to discuss the details now. So again, I see that the discussions are going very productively and very quick. It's very important that it's our program that what we plan to do. It's the plan of the government that we already adopted in our official plan of the government. So there we're just discussing how it's going to be when and how to structure the program, but I'm very optimistic about it. But I want to from that go to why something that is my goal in the Ministry of Finance is important and linked to the program is the introduction of the midterm budget. This is something again, it's very important to talk about individual reforms. It's very important about preventing corruption, fighting corruption, doing all of that. But the most important thing is to build institutions that can work without us as good as they work now when we have the reformers who are driving them forward. So like today I'm here doing my negotiations with the IMF and my team in the parliament presented the budget and the parliament supported the budget for 2020 and supported the budget conclusions. And we are moving ahead with the budget cycle in a very disciplined and structured way whether I am in Kyiv or not in Kyiv. And I think this is very important when we talk to investors before we had the midterm budget and before we were disclosing all the information on the budget, the budget execution been very transparent. The first question was where are you at the IMF? Are you on track? Are you in program? Are you now more and more we hear the questions, how is the budget performing? Where are you on the budget cycle? We're very transparent about that. And my dream actually for this program which I'm sure we will discuss and I know that, you know, whether it's going to be very soon or soon or we will have the program and we will but my goal and my dream is to actually graduate from this program because the problem with the IMF cooperation before 2015 was we would start the program at the country and not we as we people but as the country we would get the first tranche we would get out of this whole that Vlad was describing and then the program would go off track and that is the reason why the ratings are trained where they are and that is the reason why we are borrowing expensively even though our macro performance is has been stellar during the past three years but we are slowly but surely regaining that trust and we just have to continue doing that and then if we can graduate from this program and continue not just catching up with our neighbors but actually be what I said you know, be one of the last fast-growing economies that can show that we can then be on our own be successful and build our own history as a very capable country with a different model with the true market economy that would be very important for me so again, the IMF mission will come back as we all heard from Paul Thompson in the nearest that's when we discuss the details and then we will be informing as soon as we can say something together with the IMF where we are So I have a two-part question part of it goes to Ms. Matanila and other part to Minister Milovanov about the conflict and it's I know it's maybe a little bit outside of DJ Nier's mandate to talk about the plans for a high-level summit meeting that would bring together the Normandy leaders but obviously there's a real elephant in the room when you come to Washington which is the status of the conflict and the question is there is a window of opportunity there as well to make significant progress or is this another basically bandaid that's going to be put on a conflict that'll be very hard to stabilize or freeze and a set of completely almost insoluble challenges that's the easy question for you, Ms. Matanila and the second question which is to Minister Milovanov is what are the costs in economic terms, development terms of the war? Obviously the region which has become the focal point of Russian activity was heavily subsidized and was a place that was loss making even in the best of times before the war started and now Ukraine has an opportunity to focus on other things, reconstruction if magically the conflict ended tomorrow could create enormous burdens on Ukraine and its growth outlook and there would be any number of political ramifications from overnight say Russian withdrawal from Eastern Ukraine. So I'm sort of curious when you think about Ukraine's future is it going to be a more competitive country and is growth going to come from activities higher up the value chain and service sector and things like that than if the legacy part of Eastern Ukraine that's been so destroyed by the conflict has to become Ukraine's responsibility once again. So anyways, we'll start with the easy part of the question maybe for Ms. Matanila. Yes, and I'm waging far out of the responsibility of the region neighborhood and enlargement and in terms of the conflict it is our diplomatic colleagues in the European External Action Service not that you need to remember this but it's a different part of the EU institutional makeup that deals with it but let me say few comments. One is that we also in terms of conflict have a very different reality. We have a president who genuinely and very in a determined way while paying quite a hefty political price for it actually is determined to be the president of all Ukrainians and he got a lot of flak. There are actually demonstrations in Kiev largest since Maidan against the acceptance of the Steinmeier formula which is basically agreement on holding elections in the occupied territory of Donbas while the government says that of course we first need to have the security situation to hold the elections but agreement that the elections will be held actually brought people to the streets. So he's paying quite a price for it but he's also determined to try to find a way for example through the exchange of prisoners to do steps with Russia that are constructive so we very much support these efforts. He has for example what he has done as one of the first signs of his reach to reach out to the all Ukrainians is eliminating the very onerous previous requirement to go collect your pensions. You have to physically cross the border now. It's the recertifications only on a once a year basis. So things like this I think are extremely positive and constructive. Having said that and let me now quote Kurt Walker with whom I was on a panel at the Brussels forum last year who said the conflict will end when Vladimir Putin decides that it's too expensive for him to have it. That's not very encouraging. So what we maybe it is getting too expensive and maybe with the reach and actually appeal and integration of the people from the occupied territories will you start changing the public mood? Maybe it will become too expensive but certainly I think that the new tone into the certainly appeal to the citizens in the Donbas area is very welcome from our perspective. I totally agree with that minister. I want to make a remark it's not a prisoner's exchange it's a one thoroughly released that's important language. That's not that was not about a prisoner's exchange that was a one thoroughly released that's an important language detail. But it's fixing talking about the economic side of the conflict. I mentioned already the labor market reform that we are focusing on. I want to comment and explain how that also plays into the reconstruction of Donbas issue. So there is research by Yuri Zhukov at the University of Michigan. He's one of maybe top young scholars on conflict resolution. He has asked the question what explains the violence during the phases 2014-2015 in Ukraine in the east of Ukraine. He didn't ask the question why there is a conflict. He didn't ask the question who is guilty of the conflict. He asked a simpler question. Take two villages in our village Washington and village Philadelphia in the east of Ukraine which are five miles apart from each other. One has a hundred incidents of violence during the months the other one has 10 explained that variance. Maybe it's the ethnic composition of the villages. Maybe it's the proximity to the strategic locations. Maybe it's political preferences in the previous election. And he actually run 36,000 variations of explanations or progressions. I used a Bayesian estimation jargon to find out which factors are relevant. The only one which came up is the composition of the industry in the village. There are three major villages. There are three major industries in the east of Ukraine. One is mining. The other one is metallurgy. And the third one is manufacturing. There's also agriculture, but it's even smaller villages. So the only one which gives a positive effect on violence is manufacturing. This is the industry which is inefficient and stand to lose. It's not competitive. It stand to lose from us opening markets. Whereas even mining or metallurgy, that's an expert for us metallurgy. Energy is important for us. So mining is important. And agriculture is doing great. And past double digit growth over the last years and continue to amaze us, to surprise us with the results. So now I go back to the labor market. And essentially in Ukraine, like it's a global story probably. We have two labor markets. In one of them, jobs are disappearing because of the new technology. And then the other one jobs are being created. Think of you as an investor. You come to Ukraine. You bring new equipment and you build a plan in central Ukraine or eastern Ukraine. Will you hire locals? Or will you bring people who are trained in the vest or maybe in Kiev or maybe from Poland? I bet depending on your price, on the price of your equipment, you will not hire locals. You will probably hire one if you're lucky or most likely you will bring someone else. So what's happening is that investments are actually killing the jobs in villages, creating unemployment, creating resistance to change, creating political momentum for populism, all kinds of resentment. And that's consistent. We see it elsewhere, but we also see it, we see the language that foreigners shouldn't buy land in Ukraine exactly because of this issue. Or we see this manufacturing story where in the villages in which there's competitive industries, there's just, you know, the world didn't touch it as bad as the villages in which there's industry is not competitive. So the story here is how to move forward. That is not the reason to start supporting the non-competitive industries during the reconstruction effort. Quite the opposite. We take a lesson from this and we try to support the industries which are competitive, but we need to make sure that we employ people in those industries. So we're talking about profiling of skills and training people so that they become employable. And so I am not thinking about this as a reconstruction. That's my personal opinion. Maybe the government policy will be different, but at this point that has not been set in stone. My view is that we need not reconstruct, we need to build new economy there and our reconstruction effort should not be done through bringing back those old outdated non-competitive plans, but in fact in training people so that they are employable in the new economy. Now how much it costs while that, you know? Yeah, understood. Okay, so we have a very knowledgeable crowd in this room who know Ukraine issues quite well. Before I open things up, a couple of requests. First, wait for the microphone. Second, if you would please identify yourself before posing your question. And third, have it end with a question mark. So anyways, I'll start right here with Melinda. In the front row. Thank you, Melinda Herring, Atlantic Council. I run the Ukraine Alert Block. I have to admit, I feel like I'm having an out of body experience. I was in Kiev in September and it was very, very negative and a lot of the mood has really changed in a negative way and everyone on this stage is very, very positive. I'm surprised what I'm hearing from the IMF, the IMF statement that came out right after the YES conference was also very negative. So I'd like to know what changed in the last two weeks if you could give us a sense of that. And I guess I have to call you, yes, there's been improvement, but when you look at the big indices on, yes, maybe 6% on corruption, why is FDI still flat? And we guys talked about the judicial bill as well. It's good, but it doesn't address one of the major problems. It doesn't take on the HJC, which fires, hires and discipline judges. They didn't take that on. So I'm not very impressed by the judicial bill. So I'd like to know how long is it gonna take until we see real results that you're talking about? The aspirations are great, but two years, one year? You go ahead and then I will just tell you, just write back at you what I think, talk about your question. I remember the day when it was June 2014. There was an investment conference in Kiev. And I just joined a few months before I joined the central bank as a deputy governor. And on this conference, I start speaking about what we are planning to do. And one person who was there interrupted me, it was a round table, interrupted me and said, factually, look, we already have seen so many like you. I mean, even with better English, all of them promised, why you are different? And I can say only one, I said that I'm only one thing, is don't judge on promises, judges on results. And now, I mean, I'm happy when the team of A, but not only team of A, but the central bank, the Europeans, Americans, the IMF, Walba and Kibir, the others say that the central bank did a great job. Post-fact, I mean, already five years, one after that we started. There is still big road to go for the central bank, but we know that they have done their job. Let these guys do their job. They are promising now a lot of things. Don't judge them on promises, judge them on actions. And even with actions, in the last two months, they managed to do many things, and to move forward in the reforms. So, I mean, they bring the good ideas of the reforms, they created the great teams. And this is done, I was not asked about this question, which Axana was asked before. Just think about that. We had the government formed in end of August, and the IMF came to the town on the 9th of September. We are only one month after that, and this is what Axana said, and we're already close to the end of the discussion on the program.  And I would not agree with you that the messages of the IMF in September were negative. And I think there was a little, there was in general, in the moment when you were in Kiev in September during the ESC conference, there was a little bit of uncertainty on the speed of the changes in the country. And I hope it will come, I mean, both also. I don't know if you got what I said, that they even start running in the forest. You know, I use this metaphor. So, I mean, let them do this job and judge them on the results. Just a minute.  Yes, you or me? I think she's, Madam Minister, why don't you start? Okay. Seniority by age would say me, but seniority by position is definitely you. I'm not sure about the age. We'll talk about it later. Trust me. But I think, you know, having discussed with the IMF again, this is my third program with the IMF and knowing a lot of details which I never can disclose at different stages, I can tell you that every time we are discussing the program, every time from the moment when we initiated, there are articles, you know, oh, everything failed. Then IMF doesn't come in time. Then IMF leaves early. Then last year, IMF mission left without message. This message to me was very positive message. Does that mean that IMF does not really have to cheer us all the time? IMF is informing about the progress and, you know, you can take different views from that, but essentially, I always say that our media and information market is a bit like our effects market. On our effects market, because it's not deep, every 100 million changes the situation dramatically. In our media market, it's a bit the same because there is not a lot of, even though we're disclosing all the data, but you will not hear a lot of meaningful information about how did we get, or discussions, how did we get from 80s to 80s or discussions, how did we get from 81% to 55% of debt to GDP? How did we consolidate our budget? How did we manage to decrease the redistribution of the taxpayers' money through the budget? How we actually instill the new fiscal rules with the fiscal risk statement published for the first time? So there are a lot to say, which is the result of years of hard work. And in the meantime, there would be, you know, are we going here, are we going there? That would be sometimes negative or positive announcements, but, you know, there is also the reality. So the reality is from the day that the new government has been formed, we are moving really quickly. Sometimes it takes two missions, sometimes it takes three missions. Sometimes, you know, we just discuss over time, but again, being a minister of finance, I usually not very optimistic. I'm usually, you know, more on the kosher side. And as we say, you know, me and Timothy are, you know, the two sides of the same coin. I'm about preserving macroeconomic stability. He's about growth. So optimism is there. Stop taxing people. I'm about discipline. But I think, again, it's a hard work. It's lots of achievements, but still more to be done. But in general, I think, you know, every day, we are moving in the right direction. And that's my main response to that. Well, it's actually a little over a month since the S-conference. I was there too. And the month was really feverish activity.  Now we criticize for doing it too quickly. And that, you know, saying, well, you're gonna make mistakes. Yes, they're gonna make mistakes. And yes, not all laws are perfect, but you actually have 70 new laws adopted in the last five weeks. Many of which were the ones that were prepared and consulted and were in the drawers and were not moving because there was no political will. So you have actually, but it's not only laws, you have actually implemented a tremendous amount of things. For example, one of the things we were always criticizing is the lack of the actual verification of the asset declarations. Well, now we actually crossed the threshold that was in our micro-financial assistance of 1,000 verifications. You are now at 1,005, I believe. And I'm 1,007. Okay, 1,007.  One of the concerns that was around there was the attack on the independence of the central bank, which is now gone. Now, I mean, I think the new team needed to learn a few things. And that has been done very rapidly. And before the ministers came into town, we actually had a dinner about Ukraine among the IFIs. There were four vice presidents of EBRD, vice president of the World Bank, myself and EIB, and the Paul Thompson from the IMF. And Paul Thompson was the most critical. And he's the one issuing. So everybody else was much more positive based on the engagement, based on what has already been done, the plans and the processes in place. So I think the month is a long time and hopefully we put you back into your body. I'm gonna comment, yeah. So you asked three questions. One is the mood has changed, especially after the IMF visit there, or at least it seems to be there's some kind of dissonance. The second one, where are FDIs? And the third one is was on judicial law. Well, FDIs are gonna take a little bit longer than five weeks, unfortunately for us. But we do have two scenarios of microeconomic forecast that we are gonna issue probably next week. That's for the first time is being coordinated with the central bank. So that's an example that now we're not running independent policies, but we actually in coordination while we maintain independence of policymaking. One remark on credibility is that no one believed when the central bank decided to introduce the inflation targeting. I think inflation was what, 30% of that point? 65% was at the top, it was going down to 40. When you decided to introduce that, no, I've been on the council of the central bank for the last two and a half years, maybe three years already, yeah. And I have presided over, I've been deputy chairman of the central bank. That's another signal that I'm now in the ministry of economy. And my deputy who is responsible for forecasting is actually the head of the, he left the job. He was the head of the department of monetary policy responsible for the inflation targeting. So it's the similar team which has been associated with the central bank. However, no one believed that the central bank will be able to bring down inflation to 76 or 5%. And now it appears to be very reasonable. And all the forecasters, all the experts have been lagging on this. So that's normal. It's our job to prove it to you. Now on the judicial reform, there have been so many changes between the first and the last draft that actually what the statement was by the EU, not necessarily, I don't know, but not necessarily by some statement which criticizes actually got about half criticism wrong. So I would encourage that you actually go and check what has been signed and we can do it together because we had dinner with Shabunin, one of our leading, like two days ago and he was very, very positive about that law. Too positive for Shabunin, you know? So, you know, you can ask him what changed, but you know, I defer to him, right? And on the mood overall, I think, yes, there have been a lot of unfortunate and really tragic situations like the House of Contreras. That should not be happening to anyone. No one deserves that under no circumstances. It is a battle, it is a battle, but we have done so much to, you know, show the other side, you know, and there are definitely dark forces trying to destabilize the government and I don't want to use it as an excuse for us not doing things, but the concern is now we are doing things too fast, not too slow, that again, land market, just look at land market, how fast it's moving through, it's been blocked for decades and this is, I tell to every person who wants to watch Ukraine, watch the land market reform, that's gonna be your marker for whether things are real or not. Just a quick, I mean, Melinda asked such a good question that we keep answering your question, but on the FDI, I just want to make a comment, I mean, and Ukraine again, in any country that is on that path, we saw a clear pattern. First, you see the speculative money that comes into the country and the portfolio investments and this year we managed through investor relations, through better information, through clear stream opening, attract four billion US dollars into the local market treasuries and they came not in a short term note, they came in three, two years and our long five, which for the first time we placed in the local currency. In local currency, the long five, which hopefully will soon be included in the benchmark indexes because it's a solid 1.4 billion US dollars, long five paper. So that is usually the first stage. The second stage is the development finance and we clearly see that all the development finance institutions, EBRD, AIB, AIFW, FMO, they all are increasing their funding. Yesterday we have announced together with EBRD that we passed the one billion euro threshold only in 2019 on the project. We had smaller target for the whole year. If we continue on that pace, it's likely that based on the 2019 results we will become the number one country of EBRD operations. We see the similar dynamics in European investment bank. We are increasing the number of projects and more importantly, we are increasing the disbursements. That has been a special project in the Ministry of Finance to work with all the IFIs. So we see the IFIs financing increasing and with the new laws now, not draft laws, the laws that were approved on concessions. The president signed it two days ago and the law on privatization which essentially killed the Soviet style list of huge list of companies that are prohibited for privatization. We will see more investments in infrastructure. The third stage, which is a dream come true for us, but that requires a lot of effort. That's when you see the FDIs from real sector. That's when you see FDIs from strategic investors. We already see the increased interest. We already see a lot of companies not just asking, not just contacting the business chambers, not just paying the visits to Ukraine, but we already see a very hands-on discussions on specific projects. I mean, obviously we cannot disclose it, but if, and I shouldn't say if, when we stay on this path, I believe in the next six to 12 months we will hear announcements of real new FDI projects which are going to be from strategic investors. Well, I'm conscious of our time. I know there were two people who wanted to jump in, but if you could just make it very quick, just a very quick question, and then I'll, so these two right up front. Great. Andrei, if you could, but okay, Andrei, please. Okay, so last question, okay. Okay, Andrei, a lot on off-gate institute. Everybody's in a panel who would like to be as provocative as possible. Let me continue this pass. The first concerning these- Very quick, Andrei, we're ready. Yes, sorry, it's got about land reform. There is one elephant missing in the room, the opinion of Ukrainians. Majority of Ukrainians are strongly against the land reform and they demand referendum. The question is why you are being elected in such a democratic way who would like to be so anti-democratic or even authoritarian in pushing this anti-democratic reform again the will of the majority of Ukrainians. Second one, no, no, no, it's a very, very short about Ukrainian Carnegie. Exactly about destroying a Ukrainian Andrew Carnegie. I'm just, it's a question probably to Vladislav. So we know that IMF for decades was insisting on privatizing everything, everything was privatizing. And even today, Ukraine government is going to privatize almost everything with one exception, Privat Bank. Why IMF has chosen Ukraine as a field of experiment with confiscation of private property and nationalization of private property and increasing of liability of government by roughly 8% of GDP. Why just this deviation from the long-term trend which we cannot see in any other place in the world neither before nor after, why you so much do not like Ukrainian Andrew Carnegie by the name Y. Kolomoyskiy? And then there's one quick question next to the clip. Okay, yeah, just a quick question. Just briefly, yeah, my question was following up on three questions. I'm Mikhail Vorobyov, Mikhail Vorobyov, non-resident fellow John Hopkins University and also your contributor to Ukraine Alert at Atlantic Council, yeah. So just one brief question on Andrew's following up. And so months ago, a very strange picture appeared online in media. So basically where Kolomoyskiy met with other top officials in the presidential administration. So the first question is what the conversation was about and the second question who took the picture. Thank you. I'm gonna answer this. I will answer this. So first of all, I remember that was Mr. Laryonov. We've had discussions over why the monetary policies in Ukraine about, you know, years ago will fail and the inflation will not come down and the central bank is gonna be a fiasco. Now I hear a similar discussion which is fine. So first of all, it is not true that Ukrainians are against the land reform. What is true is that if you ask the question, would you like, a Ukrainian, would you like to allow foreigners to buy land? You would get 85% against that. If you ask question, should the person who owns land freely choose to buy it or to sell it, you will get 60 to 70% for it. So it depends on how you ask the question. Furthermore, of course you can ask the question, should we have a referendum on whether foreigners should be allowed to buy land? So I've been in three TV shows with Yulia Vladimirovna asking me exactly these questions about why we're going against the will of people and so that the answer is the following. First of all, the referendum has happened on this. Both candidates to become in a presidential election were very explicit about their promise to start the land market. In fact, not to start it but to de-shadow it because every reasonable person in Ukraine knows that the market for land is there. So it's not really about starting it, it's about bringing it out of the shadow. So that referendum has taken place. Now if we want to address the question of referendum a little bit more serious and ask what will be put on the referendum, the reform has two things in it. One is state-owned land. What do we do with state-owned land? We move it to the communities, to the local municipalities. So that's not what the referendum better be about because it's actually within the process of decentralization that has been going on for a while. We're just unlocking the bottleneck and moving not 5% of land but all that we have promised and maybe more. The second one is the really question of moratorium. We have today 10% of land of privately held land which can be traded and the other 90% which cannot be. So the only question we can ask there is that whether we will continue not allowing people to use their property. That's a violation of constitution. So if you really look into the details of the reform that becomes clear that the question about referendum is just a manipulation. All right, now the second question was about I think, I forgot about it. No, I did not. There's something about privatization. This is not true that we are privatizing everything. This is absolutely not true. I'm speaking every and even today. Every time I'm saying they're gonna have two streams. One is asset holdings where we're gonna hold the critical assets or assets which are not ready. In fact, all the banks which are not ready are gonna be held. The second one is about half of this small and medium privatization which we're gonna privatize, of course, because there's corruption, it's massive, it's not essential, you know, there are a lot of them in liquidation. But those companies, I just said, it's gonna take a long time to prepare them if we decide to prepare. There are three reasons for which we're going to hold the companies, not privatize them. Strategic reasons, service reasons, and actually asset holding reasons. So if we perceive that the company will perform better under the corporate governance and state ownership, we will not privatize it. Now, there is nothing in the program that requires us to privatize everything or something specifically. What the program requires us to get hold of how we manage state property. And that's what we're doing. I would just add on the state-owned banks when I came to the government in 2015, there were actually seven state-owned banks. Nobody talks about it now. But we used to have seven state-owned banks, six, and then the seventh private was added. Private bank is not the first bank the state had to nationalize. Ukr-Gasbank, which we own right now, has been nationalized. It was well before. Rodovitbank has been nationalized, which we had to close because it was dead before it was nationalized the first time. It was the one decision to nationalize it, and then we just disclosed what it was, and we had to close it. It was Bank-Kiev that was nationalized alone before, and we had to do the P&A of the assets and also close it. There was the land bank, and there was the Ukrainian bank for reconstruction and development, which we actually privatized, and we sold it to a Chinese corporation that has bought it at the open auction. We do have the strategy that we have developed as the Ministry of Finance and Adopted, and we are updating that strategy of what do we do with state-owned banking, which clearly says what is our intention. And our intention is very clear. Whatever was nationalized because it failed, had to be run properly, had to be made as healthy as possible, and returned back to the private sector, i.e. privatized. So our plans has been clear from the start from 2017 to privatize the Privat Bank and to privatize the Ukr-Gaz Bank. We are actually moving, and it's a five-year strategy, so for each bank there is a clear milestones and when it has to be done. Ukr-Gaz Bank, we are moving on the schedule, and we are at the final stages discussing with the International Finance Corporation that they are taking the meaningful minority stake, and then together with IFC, we will privatize it completely. Privat Bank, I mean, we are doing, and we have the legal strategy, but we have also put a very capable supervisory board there. We have developed the bank. The bank is profit-making bank right now, and it will be privatized within the next three to five years horizon. On Oshad Bank, we have similar strategy to Breen, and we are discussing with EBRD, and it's a well-progressed project. And the only bank which right now probably will stay in the state's hands is Exim Bank, but we are focusing that bank a lot on the export import operations and also the IFIs project support. So we do have a very clear strategy. It's public, it's public for the past three years. There will be update of the strategy soon because we are updating it on a daily basis, and the public strategies of each bank. Just maybe if I may add here two very small remarks. The first is, as I kept saying, those who don't like institutions, they like referentums. And what I would recommend you not only to observe how these decent ministers do their reforms, but also how they develop their institutions and not only observe, but also help them. This is also from the European Union, et cetera. And just maybe to come back to the question which Melinda was asking, what has changed. I think we, as recently was in the interview of David Rubenstein with Ruth Ginsburg, she said that everybody takes mostly on things which are on disagreements and nobody looks on agreements. But we, I think, already too much used that this decent minister brings the budget to the parliament on the 15th of September. We just forgot that three years ago it was completely different way. We already used that it was, last year it was taken on 22nd of November. 22nd of November, and only three years ago, and all the years before, we were taking this on the 31st of December. And this is not about only the personality. This is the institution, and also Robyn was working in the ministry. So this is how they establish the processes. And I'm sure that the ministry of economy, which is now developing their internal tools, will contribute further with a macro forecast and will take much easier way. And this is what changing in the eyes also of IMF, how we now cooperate with these institutions. And again, please, this is also to Katrina, help with all your efforts also to the ministries, to develop the institutions. Well, perhaps the last word from Ms. Makulov. And we'll wrap up. Thank you. We in fact have something called Ukraine Reform Architecture. We're together with DBRD, we support the development of institutions with embedded teams in the reform ministries. But also on the land reform, one sentence just for avoidance of any doubt, as long as it's done in a transparent and proper way with safeguards for the small farmers and proper rules on concentration of ownership, but also access to finance, the European Union is very much supporting the land reform. Thank you. So please, everyone, I hope this has sort of been very eye-opening. It certainly was for me. Definitely reframes a lot of the discussion about Ukraine, which is unfortunately becoming the U.S. domestic political football. And it would be really nice to put some of the focus back on what's actually happening. So please join me in thank you, Minister Markarava, Minister Muravanov, G.G. near Matrila and Vesela. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.


I am Julie Merin. I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Caille-Leuven research group of urbanism and architecture. I think it was maybe in 2014, when this term was really popping up with Jabert in Rotterdam. But then, of course, what falls under the umbrella of urban metabolism I had been dealing with before, but I think it was from there on that really this label of urban metabolism. I think we've talked about it already a lot. It's difficult to really define what is urban metabolism, because every discipline uses it in different ways, or I think in this one text, this Castan Broto, she says, or he says that all the disciplines who use it use it to push the boundaries of their own discipline. So maybe to think of then how I use it in urban landscape design would be not really to push the boundaries of that own discipline, but to employ urban landscape design to find bridges between different disciplines and integrate that in urban landscape design. So that would be, I think, how I use it to facilitate transdisciplinary dialogues through forward-looking urban landscape design. There's, of course, also the industrial ecology approach, which is quite clear in how quantitative modeling to optimize urban metabolism. Well, I guess it depends on the researchers and the fields that you're talking to, I would say. Well, urban metabolism in itself may be not so much, but sometimes I think in practice, et cetera, circular economy is more interchangeably used for anything that has to do with making the urban metabolism circular. Yeah, difficult to answer. Yes, the metabolism studies in Antwerp, et cetera, yes, so in that sense, definitely, yeah. Yes, I do feel that any assignment now, any tender asking for design research or design explorations, is incorporating notions of urban metabolism, but then I would say the terminology used is more circularity or circular economy. I do have the feeling that most of us from the network are involved also in practical work, so being advisors in certain projects that are commissioned by municipalities or other governmental agencies. So in that sense, I think this exchange is quite productive in terms of that it aims to transfer what we discuss internally to concrete projects. Yeah, I do think that the learning by doing approach is key here because it's such, as we said before, a wicked problem to deal with. So this iterative work between testing it in cases, bringing disciplines together and at the same time reflecting on it more in an academic way. I do have the feeling that it moves forward. One thing that I think maybe is missing to even accelerate that more is that after the designing with flows workshop, which was very well documented and put online, et cetera, all the other work that was initiated by OVAM in terms of design research has not really found a way to be broadcasted and widely dispersed and maybe that would even support more the distribution and the advancement of what we are doing. I think there's a box where it could perfectly fit in. If you look at circular flounders, they have these different tracks, circular economy that is more focusing on innovation within business, et cetera. But then you also have the track of the circular city. And there's quite some interesting things around Reburg, which certain infrastructures, circular infrastructures, biogas, insulation, et cetera, our research around that is broadcasted, but I do feel that everything that happened in the designing with flows workshop and the research on metabolism in Antwerp, in Brussels, et cetera, could go into that track, not as, let's say, a final solution, but as an exercise where a lot of thought was put in, a lot of data was gathered, and to advance this question of what is a circular city. You did already a great effort with building out the network and creating the group communication, et cetera. So I see that really as a first step in what eventually would be ideal if you would also have a physical space where you can meet each other, work on your own or find collaborations, have exchanges over coffee that maybe lead to projects. Yeah, that would be, I think, interesting with the group that you've assembled as a first step as a chair. So what I feel is, I'm speaking from the urban design perspective and what's happening in terms of design research around metabolism and circular economy, which is really a lot. You see a lot of calls for design research around circular economy. Many policy plans now with the new legislation as well where cities really want to get this circular economy landing in their cities and develop their cities around that concept, also connected to spatial development. But what I do feel is that there's so many studies, so many things happening that we don't take enough time to really sit back and reflect on the trajectories that we have accomplished. And there I think there's a lot of lessons to draw, a lot of things we can already learn and transfer to next sessions. But I do feel that the momentum is more okay, a new study, a new study, a new study and that studying the results of the studies is a study in itself that could be very, very valuable to really learn from it. As a collective learning trajectory, like reflecting on since maybe the designing with flows workshops, all the studies that have been done, it's often the same people that have been involved, so to really structure a learning process around that. Well, that's part of this learning, this question. That's I think an important question because every study has a big report in the end, which is probably most which has a lot of complexities embedded and I'm not sure if all these complexities come across for people who weren't involved in actual trajectory, because there's so much learned across this trajectory. So I think it's also a challenge for us to start thinking about then how to then have develop like a communication strategy or is it as you say like a page flow or a forum or something very open that is not saying this is how circular antwerp should be, but this is how the question was approached, that is what we got out of it, those are the takeaways, this is what went maybe not ideal and then move from there both in terms of the roles of the designers but also of the many, many people sitting around the table wearing different hats, having different expectations.