Vice-president IFC: We are trying to really escalate, scale up our presence, our investments in Ukraine

Exclusive interview with Alfonso Garcia Mora, IFC’s Vice President for Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean, to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency

Text: Dmytro Koshovyy

-- The war in Ukraine is dragging on. The basic scenario of the program with the IMF assumes its winding down in the middle of 2024, and the negative one – at the end of 2025. How does this affect IFC's plans for Ukraine?

-- There are two stages in terms of what we are doing in Ukraine. What we are doing today is what we call "keeping the lights on", which means helping specific priority sectors by providing working capital for their short-term needs. We also provide support for long-term investments, for example to rebuild destroyed infrastructure.

The longer the invasion lasts, the longer we will need to continue focusing on this first phase and the later we will be able to move on to the reconstruction phase. So I think that's the key thing. This won’t affect our commitment or negatively impact investment volumes. Of course, the moment the invasion is over, there will be a much bigger influx of capital into the country. But we will continue supporting the country even if it takes until 2025.

-- IFC launched a $2 billion response package to support the Ukrainian private sector in mid-December. What are the first results?

-- This is a package that will allow us to invest $2 billion in the next 18 months: $1 billion from IFC’s own account alongside $1 billion in guarantees and concessional finance from international donors. We are in the process of receiving increased support from international donors, which will allow us to do even more. But, as of now, we're using our own funds. We have already significantly increased our presence, our