Andrew Forrest commits $740m to global investment fund to rebuild Ukraine
Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest will commit $740m to a global Ukraine investment fund for reconstruction, with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it could see the country become “the fastest growing economy in Europe, if not the world”.
The “Ukraine Green Growth Initiative” was hoped to grow to US $100bn, seeding investment in energy and communications infrastructure to transform the nation into a “digital green economy” in the recovery from the Russian war.
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“Andrew and I have agreed we will not replace communist-era rubbish Russian infrastructure, instead we will leapfrog to the latest technology,” Zelenskiy said in a statement on Thursday.
“We will take advantage of the fact that what the Russians have destroyed can readily be replaced with the latest, most modern green and digital infrastructure.”
Forrest, founder of Fortescue Metals, said he had been in negotiations with governments in Ukraine, Australia, the United States and Britain, the OECD and members of the international business community, including investment firm BlackRock.
Forrest’s investment of US$500m (AUD$741m) was the first announced component of the fund which was expected to grow to a minimum US$25bn and up to US$100bn. Forrest’s contribution would come from the Tattaran Group, the investment company operated by the mining magnate and wife, Nicola.
“I invite professional investors, fund managers and sovereign funds and all who believe invading another country should now be forever consigned to the historical garbage bin of humanity’s worst mistakes, to join us,” Forrest said in a statement.
Russia this week launched a wave of missiles targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. One missile blast killed two people in south-eastern Poland, with the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, saying it was “highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence” and “unfortunately fell on Polish territory”.
Forrest spent a week in Ukraine in June, meeting Zelinskiy and much of his government. He said he had briefed US President Joe Biden, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, OECD secretary general Mathias Cormann, UN special envoy Michael Bloomberg, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
He claimed it would usher in a new “golden age” for Ukraine. In an interview with Nine newspapers, Forrest likened the investment vehicle to the Marshall plan, a 1948 program of postwar assistance from the United States
to help rebuild Europe after the second world war.
“The whole world can see how Russia, unable to win on the battlefield, terrorises civil infrastructure. The price of reconstruction is growing with each new strike,” Zelinskiy said.
“One day the aggressor will pay for everything in full, but our people cannot wait for electricity and heat for months. We need to restore Ukraine now! That is why this project is so timely.”
“This innovative initiative will facilitate the world’s first green digital economy and the fastest growing economy in Europe, if not the world.”
In an interview with ABC’s Radio National, Forrest claimed the business investment would have a “10 times multiplier effect” in Ukraine.
“You will remember the German economic miracle, the Japanese economic miracle after World War II … Ukraine will have it faster,” he said.
“From sovereign funds to professional investors, institutions all over the world and in Australia, this would be a good investment.”