Ukraine businessmen disappointed with results of president’s visit to China

When France’s Nicolas Sarcozy first went to China, he returned with signed contracts, including the one to build an Airbus plant in China. Meanwhile, according to The InvestGazeta, the majority of documents brought by Viktor Yanukovych from China are merely memoranda without any concrete commitments or deadlines.

“We didn’t plan for any major breakthroughs in specific areas of cooperation. What the president signed looks more like memoranda on intentions,” says with regret Serhy Kapuzo, deputy head of Ukraine’s trade mission in China.

As a result, the visit by Yanukovych, important and useful as it is, lacked the specific business content.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has many things to offer China, notably, cooperation in plane and aviation engine building.

“At present, China is involved in designing and building its own mammoth cargo plane, a long-range passenger plane, a 5^th generation fighter and a large helicopter – in all these projects Ukraine could come in handy,” Kapuzo said.

Other avenues of cooperation with China include joint satellites launches, nuclear and alternative power engineering and agriculture.

The president could have persuaded those companies that demonstrated willingness to operate in Ukraine to come up with concrete investments, Kapuzo said.