Invest in Ukraine

Tonight while procrastinating I came across a directory of Ukrainian companies, grouped by region and city, that are looking for investment partnerships in the English-speaking world. I know not all of you are interested in dumping thousands of dollars into a former Soviet state. Perhaps you'd rather spend your money on your golf game, a new sports car, or a good divorce. But just in case this might be of interest to one person, I'll give the link.

Personally, if I had the money to ante up, I'd partner with The Kharkiv Biscuit Company:

This Open Joint Stock Company, has 900 employees, with 70 to 80 in their retail operations.

The company sells mainly to retail shops in the Kharkiv area and they export some products to the CIS, mainly to Russia. They also export a little to Italy and Austria, but the Ukrainian currency and customs regulations make it difficult to export in volume.

The company is the only one in the Kharkiv area that specializes in baking assorted biscuits. There are 33 other enterprises in Ukraine that make crackers, but this company is the only one to produce both biscuits and crackers. They have a production capacity of 150-160 tons per day and produce a full range of products at each price level. They do not make biscuits with sugar or chocolate icing. They have seven biscuit lines and their product quality is very high and competitive with products from Europe and Russia.

They make damn fine chocolates and sweets, a wonderful Kyivesky Tort, and there main shop downtown is beautiful. I'll be sure to take a photo the next time I stop in -- and I do stop in often.

One more in line with the interests of some people I know stateside is Wood World, a company that makes prefabricated homes, like the one in the picture.

The company was established in December 1999 when foreign equipment made in Germany , Holland and Poland began to be shipped to Ukraine . Currently the enterprise is growing very intensively due to aggressive marketing policy and advantages in quality, prices and assortment of products and services. In 2003 they employ 80.

The company participated in a Marshall Plan type study tour of the US in 2000 and as a result entered the pre-fabricated home market.

The company is looking for a joint venture partner to take advantage of their market opportunities.

Wood World has a website in both Russian and English.