President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, December 21, 2022 in Washington, DC, USA.
Oliver Contreras | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have agreed to coordinate investments in Ukraine’s reconstruction, Kyiv said on Wednesday after the two men met.
According to an advertisement on the official website of the President of Ukraine, Zelenskyy and Fink “agreed to focus in the near future on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country and directing investments to the most relevant and impactful sectors of Ukraine Business.”
BlackRock Financial Markets Advisory and Ukraine’s Economy Ministry signed a memorandum of understanding in November, after Fink and Zelenskyy met in September to discuss channeling public and private investment into Ukraine to help rebuild the country after Russia’s highly destructive invasion.
BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment managers, offers “advisory support in designing an investment framework aimed at creating opportunities for public and private investors to participate in the future reconstruction and recovery of Ukraine’s economy,” the company said in a statement last month. BlackRock had no further explanation at this point.
Zelenskyy was in Washington DC last week to meet with US President Joe Biden and to address Congress as the US House of Representatives finally approved a $45 billion aid package for Ukraine on Friday.