in addition, i would separately emphasize that in the context of our european integration, we can note another achievement of the ukrainian parliament, which is unprecedented cooperation with the european parliament. there is no doubt that a whole series of circumstances and such a quick accession of ukraine to the european union contributed to this, but i especially want to note this and thank the presidency of the european union. of the parliament, roberti metzoli, to all the parliamentarians for the fact that during this period we received a completely new quality of our cooperation. she expressed herself a lot in why, first of all, it is in the memorandum of cooperation that we signed last year with the president of the european parliament, and this means that offices of both the european parliament and the verkhovna rada of ukraine will be opened in ukraine and in brussels, respectively. ukrainian deputies can get the status of observers. at meetings of the european

parliament even before ukraine's accession to the european union. the ukrainian committees of the verkhovna rada of ukraine today have an extremely high level of cooperation with the relevant committees of the european parliament, which, unfortunately, has never happened before, it gives us the opportunity to synchronize already on the way to the european union. another fifth achievement, as far as i'm concerned, is definitely the visual reduction of the distance between'. and its membership in the north atlantic alliance. today, when we talk to every parliamentarian, every speaker, and every parliamentary delegation, the issue of the washington summit is one of the priority issues. we ask that the parliaments put pressure on their governments, on their presidents, to make appropriate decisions will ensure the success of the washington summit this year. another very important cultural and historical one.

the national historical heritage is the unification of parliaments around the problem that befell ukraine 90 years ago. this is a famine. i want to thank all the parliamentarians that in two years of the full-scale invasion, we managed to more than double the number of parliaments that recognized the holodomor as genocide of the ukrainian people. this is a very big step forward. claiming this most terrible calamity that happened with the ukrainian nation, to its recognition at the world level. separately, a number of initiatives and support for existing initiatives, which are carried out at the interparliamentary level. undoubtedly, this is support for the peace formula proposed by the president of ukraine, volodymyr zelenskyi, and the parliaments will have their own track in the implementation of this peace formula, in the implementation of this summit. exactly as we have already

received the appropriate track in the direction of the crimean platform, and you know that the parliaments over the past two years have very actively supported this idea, and the last summit, which held in prague gave the opportunity to gather 70 parliaments and parliamentary organizations that took part in this event, this year we will hold it in latvia, dear colleagues, i want to assure here that... all the work of the parliament, which is aimed at the active use of inter-parliamentary diplomacy , will continue. summarizing, i would like to say once again that the parliament was actively involved in the implementation of the peace formula, clarifying the provisions. we have reached a high level of cooperation and mutual understanding with the parliaments of the g7 countries, i already have the opportunity this year will be the third time to take part in the meeting of speakers of the big seven. together with you, we worked with the european parliament. we actively work in the format

of the visegrad group plus ukraine. we also expect to revive the format of cooperation in the triangles of ukraine-poland-lithuania, ukraine, moldova, romania and generally to review our work with our closest neighbors. in addition, we do not discount our relationship with the congress of the united states of america. i emphasize once again that we value bicameralism and two parties. the support we have today but we will continue in the near future, literally tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you will get a new example, i don't want to spoil it, but it will be a new example of speaker cooperation at the level of how to promote the interests of ukraine in the congress of the united states of america, so dear colleagues, once i want to emphasize that all this time the parliament worked, is working, will work for our joint victory and... thank you, mr. chairman, you intrigued

with the news that in a few days a new level of ukrainian-american parliamentary cooperation and... before how to continue with speeches from the podium, now we will look at the screen, because with an appeal to all today's speakers, government officials and ultimately to all ukrainians, samantha power will now address, she is the administrator of the united states agency for international development, ms. samantha from the 14th year systematically supports ukraine and recorded a video message, please pay attention to the screen. i am an administrator now under president biden and as ambassador to... the united states under president obama, i am very fortunate to greet the people of ukraine, the members of the ukrainian government, wherever i am in ukraine or in the usa, ukrainians come to me, thank me, i always try to stop them, somehow say: "no, no,

please, there is no need to thank the american people for the support that we can provide ". let's do better, i thank you. for everything you have done, not only during the time from the beginning of the full-scale aggression until years ago, during the russian aggression, but for your efforts to develop democracy, the rule of law, i am really inspired by what ukrainians and the ukrainian government have been able to do together, this it's really the greatest honor of my life and we're very pleased that we...we were able to participate even a little bit in this, in this, you increased your export of agricultural products, actually to pre-war levels, no one thought it was possible. your economy is growing at an explosive rate, it exceeds all

expectations of the imf and anyone else. smes are developing. diya is the e-governance tool that is talked about all over the world, your parliament. actively adopts legislation, anti-corruption measures allowed ukraine to rise to 12 points in the index of transparency international , this is your work, your achievements, we only support you, we are secondary characters, but for us it is a great privilege to remain your partners, today is a very sad anniversary, i want to on this... tell you how much we appreciate that ukrainians have achieved unity under the banner of freedom, thank you to everyone, from the president to the prime minister, to ministers, to teachers, soldiers, diplomats,

everyone, you are all extraordinary, and we have learned a lot from you, we will be your spirit keep with you in your hearts for years to come. thank you ms semanti paur, our international dimension. in the second panel, stability and economic capacity, the foundation for victory, we will continue with mr. ihor zhovka, i invite the deputy head of the office of the president of ukraine to speak. thank you, mr. vadim, thank you to the organizers, the help from the united states of america is really important, which, as we are sure, the appropriate decisions will be made by the congress of the united states of america soon, but i would like to continue the topic of the european union. about which there is a lot today talked about, indeed, the decision of december 14 last year on the start of negotiations with ukraine, regarding ukraine's accession to the european union, it takes ukraine's relations with the eu to a completely different, more ambitious and much more complex level, and

you and i can already see this at those events , which are taking place, in particular on the ukrainian border, indeed ukraine has always said that it will become, aspires to become a full member of the european union, aspires and will be a responsible partner, including trade partner, we did not miss a single stage on this way to the start of negotiations, we passed all the necessary stages, we got the european perspective, we got the candidate status, we carried out the relevant seven steps, we are working today to ensure that the decision to start negotiations, it acquired practical dimension, it is more about... the necessary bureaucratic processes, and we really will not allow these necessary bureaucratic decisions to be turned into some kind of political decisions. to date, indeed, after ukraine has fulfilled all the necessary requirements four steps at the legislative level, we are waiting for the adoption of the relevant report of the european commission, there should not be

any delays here. the next stage should be the approval of the negotiating framework by the european commission, its submission to the consideration of the member states, the corresponding acceptance by the member states, about this in detail. yesterday the president of ukraine spoke with the president of the european commission orsula vonderlein. and the next stage is the actual holding of the intergovernmental conference, which means the practical opening of negotiations. all these solutions, i emphasize once again, they are purely technological, let's say bureaucratic , they should not be subject to any political influence from any member state of the european union, the president talks about this again with all the leaders of the member states of the european union, we have every reason to hope that by the beginning of june , when the elections to the european parliament will begin in the european union, an important political event, but ukraine definitely should not become and will not be held hostage. such political events. along with this general,

general movement towards membership we definitely we are confidently following, let's say, a parallel track, which is the integration of the ukrainian market into the internal market of the european union. mr. prime minister already spoke today about several visa-free programs, in fact, very important areas of ukraine's economy are already integrated into the internal market of the eu, maybe not everyone notices this, but it is already working and... today we talked about energy and about the digital market and the free roaming market, very important decisions that were made for ukraine at the beginning of russia's open aggression against ukraine, this is the liberalization of our trade, the introduction of so-called autonomous trade preferences and the liberalization of our trans-movement of our transport to the european union, these important decisions were taken for ukraine, it was not some kind of bonus, it was not some kind of concession, european countries, when they took such decisions, they were aware that ukraine can and has the right to such decisions, therefore today... it is very important to extend the respective validity of these

agreements, you know that they are concluded for a period of one year, as of today ukraine says that in the terms in which they should be extended, namely until may, both of these agreements should be extended, and ukraine, in accordance with these agreements, and in accordance with the deepened comprehensive zone of freedom and trade that exists between ukraine and the eu, must use these rights, and of course, we will emphasize once again. you about the fact that we do not violate any norm of these agreements, we do not violate any norm of the association agreement and the deep free trade zone , and we want the european union partners did not violate such relevant norms. what will ukraine do next? of course, after starting the negotiations on the eu, ukraine will continue its integration into the eu internal market, we are talking about the fact that we have the right to say that ukraine, on its way to the eu, will use all four so- called freedoms that exist in

the european union union. free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. again, somewhere our progress is quite significant, somewhere we continue to work, well, let me mention, for example, the well-known agreement on assessment and compliance of industrial products, the so-called aka, the so -called industrial visa-free, we, despite the military. in ukraine, we continue to talk about the fact that our meteorology standardization system must receive the necessary certification from the european union and must also be a part of the corresponding market system of the european union, therefore , today the economic, let's say , track of our relations is no less important with the european union than political. indeed, ukraine is quite a powerful economic player, and this is noted in the european union, and this is what we are doing despite... the opposition to russian aggression, we do it honestly, we do it fairly, we do it in accordance with

european rules, that is why the president of ukraine reacts very clearly and quickly to the relevant manifestations of the steps of those countries that violate the relevant norms of their legislation, ukraine reserves the right to react appropriately economically, at the same time, the president constantly says that he is ready and waiting for dialogue. the best means and method of resolving any disputes, both within the european union and between ukraine the european union is a dialogue, if there is no dialogue, there are appropriate procedures, including under the association agreement between ukraine and the european union, and in the context of yesterday's events, i want to mention another important stage of ukraine's relations with the european union, yesterday you saw that two more agreements on security obligations were signed between ukraine

and two member states and member states of the european union, in particular italy, before that there were several more states of the european union, there is also a separate track between ukraine and the european union regarding security guarantees, at a certain stage such a document will also be concluded between ukraine and the european union, but today the main goal for ukraine is precisely bilateral security guarantees with most, if not all, members of the european union. let me remind you that, unfortunately, some eu states have not even joined the villeneuve declaration, which was concluded on july 12. we know these states, we aspire to the fact that such states, including ukraine's neighbors, would certainly exist it is important that they become guarantees, guarantors of the security of ukraine and the relevant agreements are concluded, and this security track is definitely an important component of the political and economic track on the way of ukraine's movement towards the eu. i will emphasize once again that ukraine will

be and will remain a reliable partner of the european union, our path to the europrop... union, to membership in the european union, is a component of our victory. thank you. thank you, mr. igor. and i invite mrs. yuliya sverodenko, first vice prime minister and minister, to speak of the economy, precisely for the continuation of economic stability. please, let's dilute our gender imbalanced panel at the same time. so. good day everyone. i welcome everyone. and, probably, a continuation of the very topic on which ihor ivanovich zhovkova finished, regarding ours. european integration, i also want to remind you that this year began with good news for the ukrainian economy, the europeans agreed on the ukraine facility plan, essentially agreed on financing, all this week we worked together with government officials within our ministries, together with our partners in europe, in order to develop a final list of those indicators that we will effectively implement in the course

of the next year, if this is how i will try to wash... as samantha paver already noted today in her address, we really have the most optimists after a 30% drop in '22, it was predicted that the growth of the economy could not be more than, i think we also surprised everyone that the recovery growth in '23 was more than 5%. and if we look at the indicators already in the 24th year, we have statistics for january 24 by january 23rd, that's already 3.5% growth, the month of february is not over yet, but we will also see a figure with a plus sign, and in general, this year, next year, we predict that the economy will continue its recovery growth, if we want

to analyze, thanks to which, what key factors contributed to the fact that... the economy began its recovery, it is obvious that the first thing is the stability of ukrainian business, 90% of ukrainian companies that suspended their activities or stopped at the beginning of the great war, they resumed their activities , of course, the macro support of our partners is very important, we have received 75.4 billion us dollars of support over the last two years, and the third, i think, very important factor is the unblocking of the black sea. in fact, the launch of a new sea corridor and a record 12 million tons of exports in january, which are essentially equal to the pre-war period, we now have the month of february with you, 8.5 million tons of exports already in february, in fact, the month is not over yet, i hope so , that we will surpass the pre-war indicators, if you

ask what is the task of the government of ukraine for this year, i would characterize it in one word, it is to become... more self-sufficient, or in the ukrainian language there is another word for self-charging, in english mostself, in order to have less dependence on sometimes changing factors, and obviously the number one task is development of the defense-industrial complex, this is a primary task both for defense capability and for economic growth, we need to localize our ukrainian production as much as possible, and one of the goals is to launch from... enterprises, which is at least five, we are already talking about it spoke on the first panel with the minister of strategic industries, the commission spoke about it in more detail, the second aspect is, of course, unhindered exports, this is the continuation of duty-free trade with the european union, and precisely the guarantee of shipping safety, so more air defense systems are needed for the export infrastructure, in addition to physical protection, we are working on fear

by expanding ship insurance, we are developing the bandwidth of the solidarity line. with romania and moldova, of course, i know that there are plans to expand and unblock container shipping. a very important task - this is the restoration of energy, we are building, developing generation, primarily nuclear power, highly maneuverable generation, green energy and interconnectors with the eu. or not, the most important issue is of course the return of ukrainians, it is obvious that ukrainians will return under conditions of security. security issues under the conditions of creating the conditions for the creation of jobs, we have already jumped a little, and under the conditions of... providing them with jobs and housing, all these programs are government programs, i will not dwell on them, in this year we we hope that we will advance more deeply

on the issue of the confiscation of russian assets, as the prime minister has already noted, 300 billion dollars are frozen russian assets in the eurocli system and in the usa, at least the task for this year is to receive income from these frozen assets, and we will actively work on this this year and... improving investments, it is clear that for international business, for which ukrainians need transparent, clear rules of the game, we are working on this, military insurance is needed risks, and i want to say that the verkhovna rada this week voted a very important law to improve the efficiency of public administration, this is the law on corporate governance, we have been working on it for eight years, i believe that this very law can also partially unlock the attraction of foreign investment into the state corporate sector. and there is also the ukraine facility, the plan i mentioned contains very important components of pillar 2 - it is 8 billion euros for the attraction of private investments,

it is for derisking operations for the jaf in order to so that foreign companies can more actively and boldly enter ukrainian sectors, such as energy, transport, agro-processing, i would also say that a very important goal... of our government is to support the ukrainian manufacturer, if you can call this program, then i would said, it was made in ukraine, in fact, because 40% of the purchase of ukrainian is returned to the budget, and i want to remind you again and again that all our macro-aid from our partners is directed to support macro-stability, to pay social benefits, to maintenance of social expenses, all taxes and fees, dividends of state-owned enterprises, export revenue is directed to the maintenance of the army. therefore, it is obvious that by supporting ukraine , we are supporting ukrainian, this is a contribution to our victory, and the information was also very, very important today, i think the minister

of internal affairs klymenko called the figure 5.5 billion dollars, this is the value of destroyed enemy equipment, it was destroyed by uavs, 90% of which were ukrainian-made, so it is obvious that this is part of the economy and part of the defense capability of our state, for this year in the budget... uah 45 billion is provided for the support of the ukrainian manufacturer, for the development of production, for the support of non-sulfur exports, for the attraction of investments in the real sector, these are well-known programs that we started at the beginning of the great invasion, as well as new programs, such as agricultural machinery compensation for ukrainian producers, we predict that this year the economy will grow by at least 4.6%, and just the implementation of all these programs that you see on the screen ... and there is a house, well known program, we plan to issue at least 12,000 mortgages this year, and 1,500 micro-grants for small businesses, a thousand processing grants to

stimulate non-lead production, non-lead exports, just from 4.6% growth this year, we hope that just 2% will give exactly these programs that you see on the screen today, i believe that together with economic growth and our confident movement towards the eu, we are really becoming... a strong european state with a strong economy. thank you very much for your attention. thank you, mrs. yulia. and i invite oleksandr kubarkov, of the deputy prime minister, and i am asking, in matters of reconstruction, the minister of development of communities, territories and infrastructure. thank you. good afternoon, dear friends, ukraine is increasing its resilience, it is very clear in retrospect. we will start. briefly from 2022, then we will go through the 23rd and talk about the plans for the 24th, in 2022 we supported the front line and held the rear, thousands

of kilometers of roads were cleared, hundreds of urgently built or repaired bridges, all this happened in the 23rd year, and organized logistics for almost a million tons of military personnel cargo, began work on alternative routes for export, namely the strengthening of the danube port. cluster, the development of railway and road checkpoints, namely two checkpoints in our country to romania, they were opened in 2022, and the winter blackouts and the targeted attack of the enemy on our cities, on our cities, determined the priorities for 2023, the first is of course passive protection of energy facilities, but we can realistically say that no one in the world has done this before, we are building three levels of protection against debris, from drones and missiles. and this winter , including, we already have confirmed evidence that the second level of protection helped us pass, of course, that this also does not guarantee us one hundred percent safety there and so

on, but we also do not stand still and... we continue then prepare the third level of protection. second, we were rebuilding critical infrastructure. 70-76 days after the terrorist attack on kokhovskyi gest, we have already launched the first water line for kryvyi rih. almost 10 million cubic meters of water passed through it. and from scratch, in a clean field, raising the whole world, to find the necessary, necessary equipment, pumps, from all over the world, all this came to ukraine, so that we could do it urgently. this is drinking water for 1.5 million people in the dnipropetrovsk region, the functioning of industrial facilities in the region, and this is almost 10% of the gdp of our country before the war. we will restore restored bridges and roads. in 2023 , the restoration agency installed 115 temporary crossings and completely rebuilt 26 bridges. the third priority is housing and social infrastructure. thanks to the program , more than 40,000 ukrainian families have been restored renovated their home. that's what it took.

about 3 billion hryvnias, and this, again, is our example of cooperation with action, the ministry of digital transformation, all this money was received through a transparent maximum mechanism, fourth, we expanded the existing export corridors and set up new ones, our task is to reach stable pre-war indicators , the ukrainian corridor, a temporary corridor through the black sea, which ukraine opened independently, became operational, here i would like to thank all the defense forces since august 8. already sent almost 27 million tons of cargo, 70% of which is ukrainian agricultural products. in parallel , we are developing the danube cluster, it is becoming an alternative route for our exports. in 2023, 30 million tons of cargo passed through it. together with the ukrainian railway , the volume of rail transport was increased. we are leaving, and i can see from the daily load figures that we are already about

15-20% behind the figure we had. before the war, this is the main indicator for us, we see that if we move like this, then, according to our forecast, we need about a couple of months, we will reach the volumes that were before the war, but it was open, well, new checkpoints were opened , existing ones were modernized, the process of modernization of 23 border checkpoints by the reconstruction agency continues, we are working with new challenges, this is the usual blocking of the polish border, the government team worked out a mutual understanding plan to resolve the situation, exit is mandatory we will find 2024 is the year of community development and sustainability, the year of european integration, the year of increasing sustainability in all sectors. we are continuing the decentralization reform, despite the war, developing a new one the architecture of planning documents, we synchronize recovery plans and comprehensive recovery and development programs, we combine the tool of regional policy and spatial planning. there are achievements here too, just this week the profile committee supported the last important one.

bill in the decentralization reform 4298, it is about the transition to the prefectural structure, that is, and i hope that parliamentarians, the verkhovna rada will also support this bill in the second reading, i do not see a problem, they found it difficult consensus with all branches of government , with local self-government bodies, with all specialized associations, with the president's office, with everyone, that is, i think that this bill will pass, our key plans for 2024 are of course to continue housing programs, in fact in the first days of january this year they launched the payment of compensation for completely destroyed housing, to date, almost 1,000 families have already purchased new houses, i believe that this is a joint achievement between us and you, we will not stop, the next step is, of course, the extension of the program to those whose housing destroyed in the temporarily occupied territories, the pilot project that we did in the city of melitopol is coming to an end, and we will move on,

of course we will start a program of capital repairs. for significantly damaged multi-apartment buildings, which, unfortunately, we have thousands of in the temporarily occupied territories, in the de-occupied territories and in the territories under our control, where russia is shelling our cities every day. critical infrastructure, we will launch the water supply in dnipropetrovsk region in full next month, we should restore it by the end of the year drinking water supply in mykolaiv. here we cooperate with our partners, with the danish government. with all exports, as i have already said, our export task is to ensure sustainable pre-war indicators, for this we are strengthening alternative transport corridors, this year we plan to open several automobile checkpoints with poland, moldova and hungary, this week relevant decisions were made by the government on the opening of the conversion point of the luzhanka point with hungary,

trucks will also pass through it, this is for us... all these, all these measures important, especially in...