Governor of Ukraine's Poltava: "We very much appreciate Azerbaijan's attitude to Ukraine"

Interview of Report's Eastern European bureau with Oleg Sinegubov, governor of the Poltava region of Ukraine.

- How do you assess the current level of development of relations between the regions of Azerbaijan and Ukraine? In which sectors is there a need for deeper cooperation?

- The trade turnover with Azerbaijan exceeds $220 million, while we imported goods worth nearly $215 million in 2020. Considering the pandemic, it is quite an economically challenging year. Nevertheless, this is what the indicators are. We export goods worth about $6.5 million to Azerbaijan, and these are heavy industry, oil products, car-building equipment, diesel locomotives, light industry, food. For instance, Kremenchuk enterprises are interested in entering the economically buoyant market of Azerbaijan and offering their products.

Poltava region is an area that stands on three, how to say, whales. We are an agricultural region, we have dairy enterprises that are also ready to export their products and master Azerbaijan's experience. We also have an oil refinery.

Our task is to create a favorable investment climate.

- Are there any plans or projects related to Azerbaijan, the region?

- We have industrial sites, i.e., where you can invest, build representative offices of your own enterprises, and so on. Let me give you a particular example, the recent appeal from SOCAR. SOCAR is now very developed in our country, and infrastructure is being built. The M03 Kyiv-Kharkiv highway in Dovzhansk is one of the key transport arteries of our country, plus the M31 highway is our Ukrainian highway, the first highway built of concrete using the latest technologies since the country's independence – this is the Kyiv-Reshetilovka-Dnepr highway. And we want such SOCAR filling complexes to be created there. We are already eyeing several potential sites for these complexes. Because this philosophy is very close to us: these filling stations are modern, they meet absolutely all modern European and world standards. Secondly, they offer quality fuel. This is very important because now both the government and the president have instructed us on the ground, including the law enforcement agencies, to fight the manufacture and sale of illegal fuel.

We also have high-tech dairy processing plants.

We can cooperate, hold round tables, we can do it online because the coronavirus has taught us to work online. It is not necessary to come here, although visits take place. We are ready to cooperate further and develop our relations.

- Ukraine included Azerbaijan in the list of strategic partner countries, and this opened up opportunities for expanding ties between the regions of the two countries.

- This is a very important document. The President of Ukraine announced and adopted a national security strategy, according to which we have five key strategic partners with whom we must develop relations. We very much appreciate the attitude and the position that Azerbaijan takes in relation to Ukraine and, in particular, to the Poltava region, including in the world political arena and in those business relationships and ties that we have. And this is really very important.

We must develop our relationship with our already officially strategic partner. What does that mean in practice? Certain benefits both in taxation and in the creation of joint free economic zones. Also, we can offer a number of advantages to our companies, our business, so that in partnership they create new jobs, new products, and really become more competitive. There are issues of tax cuts and tax postponements. But we must gather the business to show that there are such opportunities.

- What is the situation with coronavirus in the Poltava region? How much damage has the pandemic caused to the economy?

- 2020 was a tough year due to the spread of the coronavirus. I remember the situation that we had. The whole world was not ready for this pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, we had 450 beds with oxygen in the region. Today it is more than 2,500. We have re-equipped hospitals, re-equipped departments there, and are building new hospitals. Last year we built a new cardio center in the region. This year we have completed the construction of a tuberculosis dispensary – it is also part of the infectious diseases hospital of a completely new complex. That is, we looked at medicine from a completely different angle. As for the damage to the local economy, I will name it in hryvnia. Our regional budget is 4.6 billion hryvnias. The regional budget received less than 120-150 million hryvnia according to the results of last year. In general, the amount is small compared to the budget, but this is the money that should have been spent on constructing schools, kindergartens, and roads. That is, this amount could be used to build, for example, ten new schools, new kindergartens.

Our area is quite specific - agrarian, in the first place, as I said. Second, this is an oil and gas producing area. We make 10% of Ukrainian oil. And we produce gas. Together with gas condensate, it is as much as 60%. And further in terms of reserves, in terms of deposits, our region is in the first place, including this area where we can cooperate with you because your experience here is just decades old.

If we take 2021, now we proceed with the growth. We have learned to deal with the coronavirus, and we have learned to live with the coronavirus. Nevertheless, we had moments when the region was completely closed, a "red" level of epidemic threat was declared, enterprises, the public catering system did not work, and public transport worked only with passes.

Now our rates of coronavirus spread have decreased sufficiently. If at the peak we recorded around 600-800 people of new infections and 200-300 recoveries every day, i.e., there was a negative tendency, now we record 100-200 new patients and from 300 to 1,000 or 1,500 recoveries. And now, there are around 8,000 active cases across our region.

- The new Minister of Health announced that next year Ukraine would produce its vaccine against coronavirus.

- I will also say that we, with Viktor Kirillovich Lyashko, were in Novye Sanjary. You probably know the whole story. This is a somewhat sad page in the history of our Poltava region. We attribute this to the fact that people did not understand, did not get it. When we evacuated the first people from China, from Wuhan, absolutely healthy people, they had to go through an observation stage in one of the National Guard complexes, and people perceived this rather negatively, although there was no reason for that. And we, with Viktor Kirillovich Lyashko, were there for days, together with the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister, and solved all the problems we had there. I want to say that he is a professional person and if he says something, we have enough reason to believe it.

Ukraine is today going through a period when there is a war going on and when it needs the unity of Ukrainians and ethnic minorities. Many young people from Azerbaijan live in Ukraine. Do you have any plan to mobilize these young people around the Ukrainian truth to support it?

- There is the Ukrainian nation. This is the first thing. Second, we must honor absolutely all the peoples who live here. Ukraine is really multinational, and I am sure that all those who stir up questions about the language, all these moments are absolutely artificial, these are political manipulations that have nothing to do with the moods that actually exist among the peoples who live here ...

I know the history of Azerbaijan and those tragic events in the history of Azerbaijan that took place in Khojaly and which we certainly cannot forget. We need to tell our children about such examples so that this never happens again. It cannot be repeated. And all this national-patriotic education should come from schools to higher educational institutions and be included in state programs. We absolutely support this, this is our path. We must support ethnic Azerbaijanis as the people of Ukraine as well. We have a fairly large number of Azerbaijanis, and they sincerely consider themselves patriots of Ukraine and support us.

Azerbaijan is one of the first states that officially declared at the international level its support for Ukraine, its sovereignty, and territorial integrity. I mean among the CIS countries. It is very important. We understand how strong this step really is.