From September 4 to 6, Riga hosted the leading food industry exhibition Riga FOOD 2025, where the capital was represented by the MADE IN KYIV collective stand. Over three days, 10 food and packaging manufacturers from the capital presented their products on an area of 36 m².
The grand opening of the stand was attended by Anatoliy Kutsevol, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Latvia, Maris Sprindžuks, Vice Mayor of Riga, Hanna Starostenko, Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration, and Anatoliy Bahan, Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development of the Kyiv City State Administration.
The three days of the collective stand’s operation were intense and productive: the stand was visited by a large number of guests, product presentations were held, and lively negotiations and discussions on new prospects for cooperation took place.
Also, on September 5, the exhibition hosted a Business Forum on Ukrainian-Latvian Cooperation, organized by the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Trade House Ukraina.
The atmosphere of the event confirmed the high level of interest in Ukrainian business and facilitated effective dialogue for the development of partnerships.
“The results of Kyiv’s participation in Riga FOOD 2025 confirm that the capital’s businesses have great export potential and are able to compete in international markets. We see a high level of interest in the products of Kyiv companies and are confident that the contacts established here will grow into lasting partnerships,” said Anatoliy Bagan, Deputy Director of the Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development of the Kyiv City State Administration.
The organizers of the Made in Kyiv collective stand are the Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development of the Kyiv City State Administration.
Interfax-Ukraine is an information partner.
Schneider Electric, a leader in digital transformation in energy management and automation, has announced the launch of the third chapter of its online School of Sustainability, a free training program designed to provide partners with the tools to become leaders in sustainability.
This chapter is dedicated to teaching businesses how to decarbonize and leverage the benefits of sustainability through electrification and digitalization. According to research, companies that fail to adapt to climate risks could lose up to 7% of their annual profits by 2035, underscoring the urgency of corporate climate action. The third section directly addresses this challenge by offering practical insights to help organizations remain resilient and profitable in a rapidly changing world.
The School of Sustainability, first launched to an external audience in 2023, offers interactive courses aimed at improving companies’ sustainability performance. The program consists of three parts and responds to the growing need for accessible, applied learning on key sustainability topics. Sections 1 and 2, which are already available, cover the basics of sustainability and the steps for building and implementing a decarbonization strategy.
Section 3 focuses on how companies can implement decarbonization through energy efficiency improvements, carbon footprint reduction, and leveraging the strategic advantages of sustainable development.
It presents individual roadmaps for key industries, including:
This section introduces practical tools and solutions that make sustainable transformation real and profitable for both businesses and their customers. It is a starting point for improving the efficiency of companies and turning sustainable development into a competitive advantage.
“I am proud to launch the new section of our School of Sustainable Development — it is an important step that brings everything together into a single, coherent system. As part of our ongoing support for partners and customers on their path to sustainability, this section will provide them with the tools and knowledge to implement sustainable development principles in their organizations and for their customers,” said Soroush Heradmand, Head of Partner Sustainability at Schneider Electric.
“As the world becomes increasingly digital and electrified, our partner ecosystem is uniquely positioned to address today’s energy challenges,” added Frederic Godemelle, Executive Vice President of Energy Management at Schneider Electric. “Every business, regardless of size, plays an important role in the energy transition. We strive to help them turn sustainability into a competitive advantage by combining environmental and economic benefits for success in a rapidly changing world.”
About Schneider Electric
Schneider’s goal is to create impact by empowering everyone to make the most of our energy and resources, enabling progress and sustainability for all. We call this Life Is On.
Our mission is to be a trusted partner in sustainability and efficiency.
We are a global leader in industrial technology, bringing global expertise in electrification, automation, and digitalization to smart industries, reliable infrastructure, future-ready data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Leveraging our deep industry expertise, we provide integrated, end-to-end industrial IoT solutions powered by artificial intelligence with connected products, automation, software, and services, creating digital twins to deliver profitable growth for our customers.
Our company’s main resource is our 150,000 employees and over a million partners working in more than 100 countries around the world to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders. We support diversity and inclusion in everything we do, guided by our meaningful goal of a sustainable future for all.
Discover the latest insights shaping sustainability, Energy 4.0, and next-generation automation at Schneider Electric Insights.
In 2024-2025, medium and large businesses in Ukraine will more often choose private clouds – due to the requirements for data control and compliance with security standards. The trend has intensified against the backdrop of war and regulatory requirements, notes Volodymyr Bjelov (GigaCloud) in a column for Interfax-Ukraine.
The key change is the transition from “formal incident plans” to built-in cybersecurity: PAM, SIEM, SOC, encryption, DDoS protection are now considered at the level of cloud solution architecture, rather than as an “add-on”.
GigaCloud is a Ukrainian cloud provider (part of GigaGroup), founded in 2016. The company provides IaaS/PaaS services, virtual data centers, redundancy and continuity solutions (DR/BCP) and GPU clouds. The infrastructure is hosted in data centers in Ukraine and the EU (Kiev, Lviv, Warsaw) with TIER III/IV compliance; the provider has VMware Cloud Service Provider (Premier) statuses and is registered in CSA STAR Registry, portfolio – over 1.5 thousand customers.
ARCHITECTURE, BUSINESS, GigaCloud, private clouds, SECURITY, Vladimir Bjelov
The relocation of Ukrainian businesses abroad, which in 2022 took the form of emergency evacuation, is becoming strategic planning to diversify risks, enter EU markets, and ensure business continuity, according to Kateryna Danilova, partner at Barristers Law Firm.
“While in 2022 relocation was often an emergency evacuation, it is now taking on the characteristics of strategic planning with the aim of diversifying risks, entering EU markets, and ensuring business continuity,” she told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
Danilova noted that “since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian businesses have kept up their interest in relocation, although it’s changed depending on what’s happening on the front lines and the overall economic situation.”
According to the lawyer’s observations, the information technology (IT) sector is the most active in terms of relocation, due to its mobility, focus on global markets, and minimal dependence on physical assets.
“For IT companies, relocation often means opening offices in EU countries to retain their teams, which also allows them to guarantee continuity and stability of services to their clients and simplifies access to international financial infrastructure. Many companies based in Diia.City are setting up overseas hubs while keeping a significant part of their development in Ukraine,” she said.
In addition, according to Danilova, manufacturing companies in light industry, woodworking, component manufacturing, and the food industry are also very active in relocation.
“The main driver for them is the desire to protect production facilities from physical destruction, bring production closer to European consumers, expand the sales market, etc.,” she said.
Agrarian and processing enterprises are also active in relocation, seeking opportunities to create processing capacities in neighboring EU countries to gain access to the market without logistical complications at the border.
In addition, these are companies in the creative industry, consulting, and marketing, which, like IT, are mobile and actively integrating into the European market.
Commenting on the geography of relocation, Danilova noted that the choice of a relocation country depends on many factors, including geographical proximity, logistics, business conditions, the availability of support programs, the tax climate, and cultural and linguistic similarities.
Currently, the main destinations for Ukrainian businesses are Poland, which leads in the number of relocated Ukrainian companies, and Germany, where Ukrainian businesses are attracted by economic stability, access to the largest EU market, and high purchasing power, although this country is “characterized by a higher level of bureaucracy and tax burden.”
In addition, Ukrainian businesses are relocating to Romania and Bulgaria, which are gaining popularity thanks to, in particular, competitive tax rates and lower labor costs, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are traditionally attractive due to their cultural proximity and favorable conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), which are “interesting for technology and innovation companies due to their developed digital infrastructure and favorable investment climate.”
However, Danilova stressed that “it is legally impossible to transfer an employee from a Ukrainian legal entity to a foreign one, as they are different business entities operating in different legal systems,” but in practice, companies use a number of mechanisms.
These include, in particular, dismissal in Ukraine and employment abroad, which is the most common and transparent mechanism, but requires the employee to obtain a residence and work permit in the country of relocation, or a business trip, which is risky for long-term work abroad.
In addition, companies use mechanisms for concluding civil law contracts, where an employee registers as an individual entrepreneur in Ukraine (or as an individual entrepreneur in the country of relocation) and concludes a service contract with a foreign company. This model is flexible but carries the risk of additional taxes and penalties.
Another common mechanism is intra-corporate transfer (Intra-Corporate Transferee), which is used in EU countries that have implemented the relevant EU Directive, which creates simplified conditions for the temporary transfer of key managers, specialists, and trainees within a group of companies. This requires, in particular, the existence of legally related Ukrainian and foreign companies. Another popular mechanism is outsourcing or “leasing” of employees, which involves removing employees from the payroll on condition that they are hired by a foreign company. However, Ukrainian legislation does not contain clear regulatory provisions governing such legal relations.
Commenting on the pitfalls of Ukrainian legislation in the field of relocation, Danilova noted a number of restrictions in the Ukrainian legal field, in particular, currency restrictions, rules for controlled foreign companies (CFC), transfer pricing (TP), as well as restrictions on travel abroad and the movement of assets.
In addition, banking compliance and opening a bank account for a new company in the EU founded by Ukrainian citizens, the complexity of managing a dual structure, the loss of preferential treatment upon the actual transfer of activities abroad, in particular IT companies, which may lose the advantages of the special legal and tax regime of Dnipro.City, as well as adaptation to foreign legislation.
“Relocating a business abroad is an effective tool for minimizing the risks of war, but at the same time it is a complex legal and organizational project. The success of relocation directly depends on comprehensive strategic planning that takes into account all legal, tax, financial, and operational aspects,” she said.
Barristers, BUSINESS, Danilova, ENTERPRISES, LAWYER, RELOCATION
Mobile operator lifecell, part of the DVL (Datagroup-Volia-lifecell) group of companies, attracted over 1,400 businesses that transferred their business numbers to it in July, according to a press release.
“As of July 2025, more than 1,400 companies have transferred thousands of business numbers to the lifecell network, choosing the operator’s tariffs and services. In 2025, lifecell recorded a twofold increase in the volume of corporate number transfers compared to the same period in 2024,” the lifecell press service said in a statement on Tuesday.
It is noted that the procedure for transferring business numbers consists of three stages and takes up to three working days.
Earlier it was reported that in January-June 2025, lifecell became the leader among operators in terms of the number of subscribers.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko has linked the previously launched audit of government spending to deregulation and the moratorium on interference in business.
“In the economy, we have launched the implementation of the National Security and Defense Council’s decision on a moratorium on business inspections by law enforcement agencies. Business expects tangible steps from the government towards deregulation. Therefore, we are starting an audit of all government spending.
We plan to significantly reduce bureaucratic procedures,” Svyrydenko wrote on Facebook on Sunday morning.
She also said that she is currently meeting with each minister and working with them on specific plans that will be included in the government’s action program.
As reported, on July 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to reduce bureaucratic procedures and conduct an immediate audit of government spending. He expects the government to report back within a month so that maximum state resources can be directed toward defense. He also announced “tangible steps toward deregulation to give people more freedom.” The relevant decree No. 544/2025 was published on the president’s website.
On the same day, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a plan to implement the decision of the National Security and Defense Council on a moratorium on unfounded inspections and interference in business, among other things, instructing
the State Regulatory Service and ministries to submit proposals for deregulation and reduction of unnecessary permits within a month. “From July 24, the tax and customs authorities will limit inspections for low-risk enterprises. The exception is high-risk industries, such as the turnover of excisable goods, where control is necessary,” Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram.
According to her, by October 21, law enforcement agencies must agree on measures to identify assets subject to sanctions and ensure their return to the budget for defense and recovery needs.
“The plans include the launch of a digital control system and a quarterly review of the effectiveness of decisions,” Svyrydenko added.
She also noted that the government will prepare amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC): only the prosecutor general or regional-level officials will be able to open new proceedings against businesses.
