The key topic of the meeting between the representatives of the Ministry led by Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine – Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, representatives of the largest Ukrainian exporters, and the American delegation headed by the Special Representative for Ukraine's Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker became export and development of logistics routes. Mykhailo expressed his gratitude to American colleagues for their stable support of Ukraine and NIBULON. He emphasized that it is important to focus on increasing the internal efficiency of the newly established system of stable export routes. This should primarily affect the cost of transportation, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of Ukrainian producers in global markets. “The experience of NIBULON, which had to redirect its cargoes from water transport to road and rail transport due to the blockade of river navigation, shows that efficiency can be improved even in extremely difficult wartime conditions. With assistance from the USAID Economic Resilience Activity in the form of 50 hopper wagons, we managed to significantly improve the economy of transportation during July-December 2023 by increasing the share of our own wagons from 10% to 23%. The economic effect, which was redistributed to the purchase price for farmers, amounted to $1.7 million. It is noteworthy that these 50 hopper wagons cover the transportation needs of only 1 out of 9 river terminals that lost the ability to ship by water due to the war (another 5 ones are occupied or destroyed). In total, NIBULON needs 250 additional wagons to scale the effect across the entire network of elevator complexes. We appeal to strengthen the support from USAID and encourage assistance to large companies, which are intermediaries in helping thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises,” says Mykhailo. Mr. Rizak believes that the increase in the supply of wagons from Ukrainian Railways and their provision from donors, strategically linked cost reduction in logistics on the Danube River, will contribute to strengthening the economic capacity of all participants in the export chain. In turn, to reduce the cost of logistics on the Danube, political influence and the organization of measures aimed at creating conditions for the withdrawal of the fleet currently blocked in the port hub of Mykolaiv are of critical importance. “During 2022-2023, we saw a more than threefold increase in the freight rate on the Danube River. As of today, prices remain more than two times higher than in the pre-war period. It is the evacuation of the fleet from the Mykolaiv port hub that should solve the problem of the shortage of “river-sea” class vessels and return freight rates to the pre-war level. In addition, the evacuation mechanism will enable the revival of Ukrainian shipbuilding industry, which has been completely stopped since the beginning of the war. We appeal to the global community to assist in preserving jobs in the shipbuilding industry and to provide work for the construction of windmills, bridges, and any other projects aimed at overall economic development,” says Mykhailo. We express our gratitude to the Ministry for Restoration of Ukraine for the invitation to participate in the roundtable discussion and the opportunity to express our position and be heard. We would like to thank our American partners, as well as personally the U.S. Ambassador Bridget A. Brink and the Special Representative for Ukraine's Economic Recovery Penny Pritzker for their stable support of Ukraine and interest in helping us to restore the economy.