Close to 50% of Ukraine’s strategic mineral resources in Russia-occupied areas – minister
About half of Ukraine’s strategically important material resources are located in temporarily occupied territories, including a large part of its coal deposits, some deposits of lithium, manganese and other minerals, Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Svitlana Hrynchuk said in an interview with Reuters.
She noted that due to the occupation of Ukrainian territory and hostilities along the front line, which is more than 1,000 km long, the sector has suffered losses of about UAH 70 trillion ($1.7 trillion).
On April 30, the United States and Ukraine signed an agreement on the creation of a recovery fund with a 50/50 participation distribution. It contains 12 articles, concerns the list of critical materials, oil and gas outlined in it, and is of a financial nature. From Ukraine, the fund participant is the Public-Private Partnership Agency (PPP) under the Ministry of Economy, and from the United States - the American International Development Finance Corporation.
The Verkhovna Rada ratified the agreement on May 8 and adopted the necessary amendments to the Budget Code in the first reading. A final decision is expected in early June. According to Hrynchuk, Ukraine hopes that the fund will significantly increase the potential of the mining industry. "Currently, the share of our natural resources sector in the gross domestic product is 4%, but the potential is much greater... We sincerely hope that the agreement will attract more attention to this sector and make foreign investment more understandable and attractive," she said.
