The Belaya Tserkov Industrial Park (IP) , a project of the holding company UFuture owned by entrepreneur Vasily Khmelnitsky, does not plan to revise its strategic development plan, which envisages attracting 30 resident companies and $250 million in investments by 2030, as well as creating up to 4,000 jobs, according to IP Belaya Tserkov CEO Andrey Ropitsky.
“If there are no ‘black swans’, then, in principle, everything is going according to plan, and we do not plan to revise our strategy,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of ‘Industrial Evolution: Manufacturing Drives the Economy’ at IP ‘Bila Tserkva’ on Thursday.
According to him, in addition to the Finnish Peikko plant, the commissioning of an industrial building for a future plant for the production of concrete joints and composite structures was announced on Thursday, and a plant of one of the world’s largest manufacturers of everyday goods, Unilever, is also under construction.
“Three more companies have purchased land from us this year and are already requesting the construction of networks. We are talking to them about commercial terms and conditions and support the construction of their plants. Therefore, Unilever is currently under construction, and the second phase of the Virastar plant (a manufacturer of high-altitude equipment for construction work – IF-U) is also under construction. So two are under construction, two have been commissioned, and three more are on the way,” he said.
Ropitsky did not specify which investors would be attracted to the park, citing commercial secrecy, but added that it is now easier to attract investors because the park already has ”something to show them.”
“At first it’s difficult because there’s nothing to show and no one trusts you. But when someone has considered the possibility and then I tell them that the plot or building is no longer available, they are ready to buy in the second phase. So it’s much easier to sell now,” Ropitsky said.
During the forum, he clarified that of the two parks (Bila Tserkva and Bila Tserkva 2), the first is already almost full (36 hectares) — all plots have been sold, and the buildings have been constructed, sold, or leased.
“This means that we only have 12 hectares left to develop, which are either already under construction, have been postponed by clients, or will be built by us or our clients. In principle, we will do this within the next two to three years. We have already started organizing the second park,” said the CEO of IP ”Bila Tserkva.”
According to him, IP “Bila Tserkva 2,” with an area of 34.7 hectares, has already received state co-financing for external networks and signed contracts with contractors.
“We are supplying 15 MW of electricity, water, and sewage to the site, and gas is right there across the road. Therefore, in a year, all networks will be in place, just like in the first park,” Ropitsky noted.
He emphasized that in order to attract small and medium-sized businesses to the park, small buildings of up to 2-3 thousand square meters are being built, ”which can be divided into lots and rented out to customers by the thousand square meters.”
Among the problems for the development of industrial parks, he mentioned, in particular, the lack of labor, the absence of materials necessary for construction on the local market, as well as high interest rates on loans.
“We have now launched a vocational training project, a center that will quickly train people who are needed by our clients. And we have already started designing such a building on a neighboring site,” he said.
IP ‘Bila Tserkva’ and ‘Bila Tserkva 2’ were included in the Register of Industrial Parks in 2018.
The developed territory of IP “Bila Tserkva” has attracted 15 residents, including Unilever, InTiCa Systems, Peikko, and Pripravka, which relocated from Kharkiv in 2022, as well as the logistics depot “Nova Poshta,” the grain storage complex “Volytsia-Agro,” the Plank Electrotechnic electrical fittings factory, and Virastar, a manufacturer of high-altitude equipment for construction work.
The OKKO Group plans to fully launch a EUR110 million bioethanol plant in the third quarter of 2026, according to the group’s CEO Vasily Danilyak.
“This year, we plan to complete the elevator and warehouse complex, which will enable us to receive corn from our cluster. We plan to fully launch the plant in the third quarter of 2026,” Danilyak said during the We Build Ukraine conference on Thursday, which was broadcast online.
He noted that total investment in the plant during 2024-2026 will amount to EUR 110 million, of which EUR 35 million will be the group’s own contribution and EUR 75 million will be debt financing. Of this, EUR 60 million was provided by the EBRD for a term of nine years, and another EUR 15 million by Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine for a term of seven years.
According to Danilyak, the plant’s annual capacity for bioethanol, demand for which is growing with the mandatory addition of 5% of this alcohol to motor gasoline from May 1, 2025, is 83,000 tons, and for animal feed – 70,000 tons. The plant’s annual capacity for corn processing is 270,000 tons.
As reported, in June 2024, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and OKKO signed a EUR60 million loan agreement at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin for the construction of a new bioethanol plant in Ukraine.
OKKO Group unites more than 10 diverse businesses in the fields of manufacturing, trade, construction, insurance, services, and other services. The group’s flagship company is Galnaftogaz, which operates one of the largest petrol station chains in Ukraine under the OKKO brand, with around 400 petrol stations. The founder and ultimate beneficiary of the group is Vitaliy Antonov.
Record price growth
In 2025, gold reached historic highs, exceeding $3,500 per ounce, which is 28% higher than at the beginning of the year. This growth is driven by global economic and political factors, including:
US trade tariffs: the introduction of 10% tariffs on imports caused economic uncertainty, stimulating demand for gold as a safe asset.
Central bank purchases: active accumulation of gold, especially by Asian countries, increased demand.
Political instability: conflicts and sanctions have prompted investors to seek stable assets.
Analysts predict further growth in gold prices:
Goldman Sachs: up to $3,700 by the end of 2025.
JP Morgan: may exceed $4,000 in the second quarter of 2026.
Gov Capital: in an optimistic scenario, up to $4,631 by December 2025.
Cloud providers GigaCloud, De Novo and data center “Parkoviy” this week signed a memorandum on the establishment of a public union (PU) “Ukrainian Alliance of Digital Sovereignty”.
“The prerequisite for the association was the foreign policy instability, which has seriously affected the global technology market, as well as the digital and economic security of the country,” the union’s founders said in a release.
They call the main goal to ensure Ukraine’s digital sovereignty, by which they mean the transfer, storage and processing of important data, in particular government, medical, financial and defense data, within the country and in accordance with the requirements of current Ukrainian legislation.
“Because of the war, Ukraine is almost the only country in the world where state data is forced to be partially stored abroad. After the war is over, the issue of returning this data under Ukrainian jurisdiction will arise. Therefore, we are ready for a dialog with state authorities to develop a strategy for such a return,” the release says.
According to the organizers of the Union, technological solutions are becoming an instrument of political pressure from some countries on others.
“We as market players are focused on the national market, we have a mission not only to sell our services here, but also to protect the economy of the country, which is the environment for our business and our clients,” representatives of the newly formed alliance claim.
Among the declared areas of work – “technological revision” of the country, as well as the development of common standards for infrastructure solutions that will allow to build large geo-distributed infrastructure between the sites of national providers, easily and seamlessly transfer data between cloud environments of different providers without artificial technological obstacles, to guarantee the safety and security of user data even in critical situations, in particular in the case of enemy attacks, as well as to implement a policy of Data Embassy and the technology of the many,” said the representatives of the new alliance.
It is emphasized that other companies that share its principles, such as data centers, software companies and infrastructure providers, are welcome to join the Alliance.
cloud providers, GigaCloud, Ukrainian Digital Sovereignty Alliance
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on April 23 announced a tender for compulsory insurance of civil liability of car owners and insurance of drivers against accidents in transport, according to the state procurement system Prozorro.
The expected cost of purchasing the services is UAH 1.044 mln. The deadline for submission of documents is April 30, 2025. The winner of a similar tender a year ago was IC “Guardian”.
