"Norway provided more than USD 500 million in financial assistance to Ukraine since February 2022," Sergii Marchenko

Today, on 21 March, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Sergii Marchenko held a working meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Norway to Ukraine Helene Sand Andersen.

The meeting was also attended by Deputy Minister of Finance of Ukraine Olga Zykova. 

The parties discussed the current economic situation in Ukraine, the needs of the State Budget for 2024 and the development of cooperation between the countries to increase the volume of budget support. 

Sergii Marchenko thanked the Government and people of Norway for their crucial and timely assistance in the first months of 2024: "The challenges posed by the war remain, and the Government continues to work actively to meet Ukraine's budgetary needs and promote economic recovery. I am grateful to all our partners for their efforts to maintain our financial stability. We look forward to further assistance from the Government of Norway, both in financing the State Budget of Ukraine and in recovery initiatives." 

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Government of Norway has provided Ukraine with more than USD 500 million in direct budget support. In particular, a grant of about USD 485 million was provided as part of the World Bank's Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance (PEACE) Project. The funding was used to compensate for State Budget expenditures on priority social and humanitarian needs. These include pensions, salaries for employees in the education and healthcare sectors, social protection, and humanitarian support. 

Recently, Norway joined the Ukraine Multi-Agency Donor Coordination Platform during the eighth Steering Committee meeting.  Norway became one of the four new member countries of the Platform, which pledged a total of more than USD 5.5 billion for the recovery and development of Ukraine's economy. In this context, the Ukrainian side emphasised that it counts on Norway's active participation in the Platform's activities and the process of Ukraine's recovery.

The Minister of Finance said that this year Ukraine needs about USD 38 billion of external financing from its partners.

In her turn, Helene Sand Andersen assured that the Government of Norway is committed to supporting Ukraine and helping it in its fight against the aggressor. 

Additional information

On 14 February 2024, during the 8th meeting of the Steering Committee of the Multi-Agency Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine, Norway, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands and Sweden joined the Platform and declared their readiness to allocate more than USD 5.5 billion to restore and stabilise Ukraine's economy.