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Ukraine eyes bigger privatisations to draw foreign capital

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Economy Ministry estimates $500 bln needed to rebuild

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Foreign firms eye opportunity in defence tech, renewables

By Brad Haynes, Max Schwarz and Marta Fiorin

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 23 (Reuters) - As Ukraine's

president discussed peacekeeping forces needed to enforce any

ceasefire and U.S. President Donald Trump urged an end to three

years of war, Ukrainian officials were courting private

investors this week to help rebuild the country.

Oleksiy Sobolev, first deputy economy minister, described a

$500 billion reconstruction effort that would pay both strategic

and financial dividends to Western investors, as Kyiv steps up

privatisation plans to attract foreign capital.

"It's the private sector that's going to be doing these

investments," Sobolev said on the sidelines of the World

Economic Forum's annual meeting, describing recent success with

smaller privatisations.

"We're looking at privatising more. It's the right time

right now to open the bigger companies," he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump told WEF attendees on Thursday

that he wants to end the war in Ukraine.

"Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and

Ukraine are now, hopefully underway. It's so important to get

that done," Trump said in an address from Washington.

Trump's fledgling second administration has led some to

recast the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine

in terms of narrow economic interest.

"Your country first. Win with us," suggested the sign

greeting visitors to the Ukraine House in Davos.

"The discussion about Ukraine is always about ... how do we

help Ukraine?" said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to

NATO, adding: "We need to look at Ukraine as part of the

solution for so many of the problems that we need to deal with."

He highlighted Ukraine's potential as a producer of cleaner

and more secure energy for Europe, and as a supplier of

battle-tested weaponry on a continent where defence spending is

on the rise.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told leaders on Tuesday that

domestic assembly lines already produced 40% of the weaponry

Ukrainian forces are using on the front lines.

His special adviser Oleksandr Kamyshyn told Reuters that

this share has risen due in part to the "dozens" of domestic

joint ventures with defence firms from Western nations already

investing in Ukrainian facilities.

"That's not only a local office (or) local factory, that's

also R&D," Kamyshyn said in an interview. He declined to name

partners, but said more than 10 are German, adding: "They are

quite heavy ... big names from the U.S. side."

Russian attacks on Ukraine's power sector, including strikes

on coal-fired plants dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, have

also created an opening for the country to pivot towards cleaner

and less centralized power generation.

Danish wind turbine maker Vestas announced a $470

million deal at Davos with DTEK, Ukraine's largest private

energy firm, to expand a wind farm near the Black Sea coast.

Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen said it had been a struggle to

line up funding for a project in a place that many lenders

consider a war zone, dragging out a process that ordinarily

takes weeks into talks that took "several quarters".

Andersen said public funding was crucial to get the ball

rolling on what would be a gargantuan reconstruction effort.

"The recovery starts before a peace deal," he said.

(Writing by Brad Haynes; Editing by Alexander Smith)