TRANSCRIPT: Text of Ambassador Pyatt’s Panel Comments at the Kyiv Post Tiger Conference WEF Panel

(US Embassy Ukraine – November 19, 2014) I think with government servants like Hanna Hopko and Dmytro (Shymkiv), you get a sense of Ukraine’s direction. I think the greatest single risk factor is business as usual. It’s the assumption in some circles that Ukraine can keep doing as it had been doing in the past. I think that attitude is a greater threat than Russian tanks, a bigger threat than Chechen mercenaries and as Yevhen said, there’s no time. This has to happen. Results, a change in business as usual, needs to be demonstrated in a matter of weeks.

It’s critically important to build on the excellent work that Dmytro and his team have done to develop a program of government, to have a new coalition formed – certainly for the United States we hope this will happen in days or hours, not weeks – but then to actually move ahead and get implementing. As Hanna said, one of the tasks is to implement the framework – the good foundation has already been laid, for instance with the Anti-Corruption Law – actually moving towards implementation of that, putting some people in jail, demonstrating that the business environment can change. You’ll have two great opportunities to demonstrate that change in the business environment as well with the Centerenergo privatization and with the 3G tender. Those should be world-class transactions and they will attract world-class participants into the environment as well.

On the question of resources, the United States, my government has made a huge bet on Ukraine, on the people of Ukraine. We have done that through a billion dollar loan guarantee, we have done that with an assistance envelope that has grown to about 300 million dollars this year. I think you are going to see another very clear message of support to the people of Ukraine from Vice President Biden when he arrives in about 24 hours. It will be his third visit of this year. I have to fact check, because I don’t think he’s visited any place in the world three times in 2014. So there is a very strong commitment.

But we have to see results, and as I’ve said, there’s no time. Certainly there is no sector that is more critical for that than the energy sector. Yury did a brilliant job of explaining the degree to which gas and energy has become a black hole that has been both a sink for the worst corruption that has afflicted Ukraine. It’s been the vector that Russia has used to keep the Ukrainian political system compromised and corrupted and it has been a huge drain on economic competitiveness. The good news is everybody knows what needs to be done. Certainly one of the lessons of the United States over the past decade is the cheapest kilowatt of energy is the energy that you don’t consume. There is incredible scope for greater efficiency in the Ukrainian energy economy, but that’s not going to be capitalized by the IFI’s or any government, it’s going to come from the private sector. Just as in the United States, just as in places like Kazakhstan. But there has to be a reliable business environment. That’s why Hanna’s point about the law is so critically important. Again, that’s why the issue of corruption has to stand front and center.

In terms of other priorities, I would also flag agriculture as another one that we haven’t talked about at all, but which represents a huge part of the Ukrainian economy. Nobody can travel around this country as much as I have over the past year and a half without being incredibly impressed by the opportunities that exist. And every business that I talk to have a story of impediments the government has presented to investment, growth and opportunity. So, on balance, I think I certainly am optimistic and encouraged by this presentation. I can assure my Ukrainian partners the United States wants to see you succeed. We have strategic interests in Ukraine’s economic success and I do think it’s critically important, despite the huge security challenges that Ukraine is confronting, there is no more urgent requirement than building the rule of law and fulfilling the expectations that the Ukrainian people demonstrated before the elections, through the Presidential elections and on the Maidan.