OREANDA-NEWS. DTEK is studying 18 partnership applications that the company received at the tender arranged under a new jobs programme. The initiative runs in the cities where DTEK's companies operate. Aleksandr Tolkach, DTEK's Director for External Affairs, shared this information at the international conference, Development of business environment in small and mid-sized towns of Ukraine. The forum was organized by DTEK on 10 October in Kiev to mark a Small and Medium Business Week in Ukraine.

The programme focuses on the current and future contractors of DTEK. If they commit to create at least 10 jobs in the towns of the company's presence, they have more chances to win the contract.

“Creating new jobs is a tool to support small and medium regional businesses. This can work quite fast. Every year SCM Group buys for approximately UAH 100 billion…However, many products and services can be produced locally by small and medium businesses. This prompted us to the decision to give preference in our procurement to those who create new jobs,” shared Aleksandr Tolkach. He also said that DTEK was negotiating with FUIB easy-term loans for the programme players.

Setting up local development agencies is another way to develop SMEs with help of big business. The agencies established with support of DTEK, local governments and NGOs or international projects counsel SMEs and bring investments to towns. “In a small town of Dobrotvor our agency provided 200 consultations for businessmen and helped to raise around UAH 200,000 during a year, the amount comparable with budget the town allocates on its development,” said Aleksandr Tolkach. In the future, industrial parks would be effective instruments to develop businesses in small towns. Today DTEK is helping to establish three such parks in Lugansk Oblast, Burshtyn (Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast) and Pavlograd (Dnepropetrovsk Oblast).