Ukrainian firms seek expansion overseas as violence rages at home. Rostyslav Vovk realized he needed to expand his pet food company abroad after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
Several Ukrainian companies have moved abroad to exploit the millions of refugees and a diminishing domestic market.
As of May, the U.N. refugee agency reported over 5 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe, with Poland sheltering over 1.5 million.
Corporate investments and growth have plummeted in Ukraine, which had 40 million people before the war.
The economy declined by over a third in 2022, its worst annual fall since independence from the Soviet Union, and very moderate growth is expected this year.
Four top executives in consumer and services industries said they had resorted to new markets in Poland and Eastern Europe to expand revenue due to a downturn in consumer spending.
“Regarding our big expansion, which started after the full-scale war, the first destination was Poland,” said Vyacheslav Klymov, co-founder of Ukraine’s largest private postal operator Nova Post, formed in 2001.
“Poland hosts the most Ukrainian war refugees, so we went there.”
Klymov added that 10-15% of Nova Post’s customers were Polish, many of whom sent shipments to Ukraine.
Andriy Khudo, co-owner and head of the! The FEST restaurant chain agreed the diaspora had helped.
Before the war, we were in Poland, Romania, and Hungary. “We started many negotiations to attract new and expand existing partnerships,” he stated.
“We began to open actively in Poland because in this market our brand and product were already known and popular and it was easiest to accelerate with existing partners there.”
Ukrainians feel at home in Khudo’s bars, including the “Piana Vyshnia” (Drunken Cherry).
“We come here because we know this, it’s cool,” said Tania Krasnik, who visited Hanna Derevianko, 34, from Cologne, Germany.
“It’s my birthday. “She came from Ukraine, and I came from Germany… and we decided to meet in Warsaw,” Krasnik said as they perched on high stools near the window and drank the bar’s cherry cocktail.
The Polish Economic Institute believes 25% of foreign-owned Polish enterprises were Ukrainian-owned.
Ukraine owned 8.5% of Polish enterprises in September, up from 0.8% in January 2022.
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