Source – Berdyansk City Council
On June 10th, the first meeting of the task team working on the development of Berdyansk’s investment passport and investor’s guide took place. Opening the session, city mayor Volodymyr Chepurnyi said that another stage of fruitful cooperation between Berdyansk and PLEDDG Project commenced. He reminded the attendees that three important documents had been developed so far thanks to the assistance provided by PLEDDG experts: the Berdyansk Strategy 2027, the Marketing Strategy, and the Communication Strategy. He also expressed his gratitude to Canadian expert in local economic development Kent McMullin, PLEDDG Senior Expert in Intergovernmental Cooperation and Economic Development Oleksandr Ignatenko, and PLEDDG consultant, coordinator of All-Ukrainian Network of Experts and Practitioners on Regional and Local Development REGIONET, Oleksandr Dudka.
“We are launching an important phase of cooperation with PLEDDG Project. I am sure the “Investment Passport” developed by the specialists will enable a prospective investor to get complete and reliable information about economic capacity of communities, investment climate, and entrepreneurship support system. This will allow making an unbiased assessment of capital investment attractiveness as well as finding reliable partners and taking decisions on launching of the activity in our city. I am certain that publication and distribution of Investment Passport will help to initiate new stages of cooperation both with Ukrainian and foreign investors”, – Volodymyr Chepurnyi said.
In the course of the first session held by the task team composed not only of executive committee officials but also of city council deputies, the representatives of business and industrial sectors, local NGOs, and PLEDDG experts showed key stages of investment passport design process and shared their advice as to how to avoid the most common mistake during drafting process and how to create a really valuable instrument for investors, including timing for its completion.
In particular, Oleksandr Ignatenko spoke about the instruments for territorial marketing and attraction of investments to urban economics, Project’s experience in development of similar passports for Project’s partner cities: Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia, etc.
Canadian expert in economic development Kent McMullin shared Canadian experience of drafting investment documents and, having reviewed the Economic Development Plan developed with support of European Commission’s initiative “Mayors for Economic Growth”, presented by Mayor, noted that the city had already performed a good share of the work on assessment of its strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, or the so-called SWOT-analysis.
Oleksandr Dudka, PLEDDG Project Consultant, Coordinator of All-Ukrainian Network of Experts and Practitioners on Regional and Local Development REGIONET, spoke about seven steps of creating Berdiansk’s Investment Passport and Investor’s Guide Design Concept, which key objective was to serve as working tools and city’s hallmark as well as to stimulate activity.
As Inna Komarova, Head of the Department for Municipal Initiatives, Investments, and Energy Management noted, the Project’s experts had preliminary reviewed the task team’s calendar progress chart. “The active phase is going to be carried out from June to August, the approval stage is scheduled for September, therefore, – as of early October we are to have the finalized documents”.
