The German company Knauf will build a plant for the production of drywall and dry building mixtures in Borshchiv (Ternopil region), with investments in the project amounting to EUR 150 million, said Dmytro Kysylevskyi, deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on economic development.
According to him, the design capacity of the new plant will be 30 million square meters of drywall and 320 thousand tons of dry mixes.
“This will be the second Knauf plant in Ukraine. The first one is located in Kyiv and is currently operating at full capacity – about 25 million square meters of drywall and 200 thousand tons of dry mixes. This is enough to meet the domestic demand of the Ukrainian market, but after the war, the demand will increase significantly. That is why the new plant in Borshchiv is an investment with faith in victory,” Kysylevsky wrote on his Facebook page.
Previously, Knauf also owned a plant in Soledar (Donetsk region), which was destroyed by the occupiers. The company took its employees out and employed them at the Kyiv plant, which employs 425 people in total, the MP said.
Kysylevsky noted that Knauf has officially announced that it has stopped investing and is leaving the Russian market. At the same time, in 2023, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) included Knauf in the now canceled list of international sponsors of war because of its continued operations in Russia.
“According to my information, they have finally left Russia. And all international companies that have not yet done so should do the same. The best way to improve your reputation after a long withdrawal from Russia is to build factories in Ukraine,” the MP emphasized.
Knauf is a leading global manufacturer of gypsum and building materials.
According to Opendatabot, by the end of 2023, Knauf’s Kyiv plant (Knauf Gypsum Kyiv LLC) increased its net revenue by 65% to UAH 3.53 billion, and its net profit by 2.6 times to UAH 1 billion.
The manufacturer of upholstered furniture Hjort Knudsen (Denmark) intends to invest EUR 11 million in the construction of an enterprise for production of designer furniture on the outskirts of Rivne as part of expanding its activities in Ukraine, the press service of Rivne Regional State Administration reports.
“Another powerful investor is entering Rivne region. The Danish sewing company Hjort Knudsen decided to create a branch in the region. The arrival of such an investor indicates attractive business conditions in the region, which will attract other donors,” head of the regional state administration Vitaliy Koval said during a meeting with Director of United Fashion Ukraine Steen Laursen.
The investor plans to build a production facility with an area of 40,000 square meters, create 1,000 jobs. The plans include the creation of a closed cycle production with the manufacture of value-added products.
The project was being prepared for about a year with the involvement of the regional state administration, the InvestInRivne agency.
Currently, Hjort Knudsen has four branches in Ukraine – the divisions of United Fashion Ukraine, namely in Lviv, Pochayiv (Ternopil region), Velyki Mosty and Brody (both in Lviv region). The enterprises produce traditional and designer sofas, club and office chairs, the assortment includes more than 200 fabric models and a wide range of leather upholstery.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) organizes a syndicated loan of EUR116 million for the manufacturer of sheet materials based on wood Kronospan UA (Novovolynsk, Volyn region), which is part of Kronospan Group, for the construction of a new plant, according to a bank press release.
“The EBRD will be the lender of the record for the amount of EUR116 million, while EUR50 million out of the total will be syndicated to commercial banks Raiffeisen Bank International AG and Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich under an A/B loan structure,” the report says.
“The funds will finance investments in new production facilities in compliance with relevant EU standards and regulations. The company plans to expand its production in Ukraine with the construction of a new facility in Novovolynsk, western Ukraine,” it reads.
“Specialized energy efficient equipment, including a 45 MW biomass boiler energy plant, a new transformer unit and a new precipitator filter will provide an alternative power supply solution, cut energy losses and help reduce dust emissions. High value-added products manufactured at these facilities are expected to lead to oriented strand board (OSB) imports substitution and more exports from Ukraine to the EU single market and other countries,” according to the document.
Kronospan was created in Austria in 1897. Currently it is the leading European manufacturer of wood-based sheet materials, operating in 21 countries. Total sales exceed EUR2.7 billion per year.
