CUTIS Project Wants Canadian and Ukrainian Businesses to Build Long-Term Partnerships

New Pathway.

Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment Support (CUTIS) Project was officially started in February 2016, sponsored by Global Affairs Canada. The Canada-Ukraine Business Forum, which took place on June 20th in Toronto, officially kicked-off this 5-year project. As the Project’s manager Myron Pyzyk puts it, CUTIS has as its mandate to work towards reducing poverty and, even more importantly, increasing the wealth of Ukraine. CUTIS will offer support to increase the export of goods from Ukraine to Canada and raise the investment by Canadian companies in Ukraine.

Over the next couple of months, CUTIS aims to analyze Ukrainian and Canadian economies to identify five priority business sectors in Ukraine that would be able to successfully export to Canada. The Conference Board of Canada (a partner of Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC) in CUTIS) is doing this analysis on the ground, both in Canada and Ukraine. Going forward, CUTIS will support the Ukrainian businesses by matching them with potential Canadian counterparts, providing training on the regulatory requirements for export to Canada, supporting Ukrainian quality control laboratories, etc. CUTIS is currently developing a web-portal that will be educating businesses both in Ukraine and Canada about the project’s advantages, the advantages of doing business with Ukraine and the export requirements of the Canadian market. A web-portal focused on Canadian businesses, which want to invest in Ukraine, is also being developed.

Mr. Pyzyk explains that CUTIS will not concentrate its support on large companies: “We aren’t looking at whether Antonov can do business with Bombardier – that’s already happening. We are focusing on small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine which have quality products that are ‘export-ready’ for Canada. We have a few additional requirements to such companies – ideally we would like to have a gender balance. This policy is very strongly supported by the Canadian Federal government to help as many businesses owned by women as by men. There are also environmental and ecological requirements for goods to be exported to Canada, and Ukrainian products will have to meet certain environmental criteria. For example, there have been certain types of bottles previously exported from China which had plastics that are illegal to use in Canada. Those exports were rejected and sent back.”

The New Pathway asked Myron Pyzyk whether there are Ukrainian business sectors with better chances to be singled out for CUTIS. He named the agricultural and IT sectors: “Ukraine has a strong agribusiness sector and we are getting a lot of interest from Ukrainian IT companies to do business in Canada. Some of the IT businesses with whom I spoke during my recent visit to Kyiv are already doing business in Montreal and Vancouver, less so Toronto. So we are trying to make the Canadian IT sector aware of the high quality of IT professionals in Ukraine which have lower wages. After we identify all five business sectors, we will identify the right companies and products in those sectors which we will match with the Canadian businesses.”

According to Mr. Pyzyk, CUTIS has already began meetings with Ukrainian and Canadian businesses and investors: “We have met with an investment group out of Western Canada that was very interested in investing in Ukraine. Our hope is to support their proposals that they plan to pursue in the near future. We had interest expressed from the food industry as well: while I was in Kyiv, we had a Mississauga food processing equipment distributor, who wanted to meet their Ukrainian counterparts. We also had a trading company, which contacted the Ukrainian embassy just a few days ago, that I will be following up on that. There is also a trade delegation coming to Toronto next week that’s going to be actively involved with the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival. At the Festival, the Made In Ukraine pavilion will present project “HeartBeat” featuring such Ukrainian brands as Foberini, Kleynod – українські годинники, Yaskrava Home Couture, MoonLinen and Three Snails Handmade Ukraine. We will arrange a round-table discussion for them here at 145 Evans in Toronto: they will get a technical input from the experts regarding the regulatory environment in Canada.”

Myron Pyzyk says: “CUTIS aims to do a lot of logistical work facilitating meetings between Ukrainian and Canadian businesses and investors. We will be helping them in terms of trade and industry conferences and shows, and separate meetings. We will not be able to cover the full costs but we can certainly help cover the logistics and some of the costs involved. The more frequently that Canadian and Ukrainian businesses meet, the higher the probability that they will eventually strike a deal. We will try to improve the chances that they can work out a relationship with each other that will be long term. We don’t want them to buy-sell once, we need to encourage sustainable, repeat business.”

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