OREANDA-NEWS. For the second year in a row ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih hosts the 2014all-Ukrainian Local Development Institutions Forum. This year it has brought together more than 80 participants from 20 cities across Ukraine. Representatives of city development institutions came to Kryvyi Rih from Kyiv, Lviv, Chernivtsy, Drohobych, Novyi Rozdil, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Voznesensk and other cities of Ukraine. Besides Canadian guests from Winnipeg, London and Vernon took part in the forum as well. The organizers of the forum were Kryvyi Rih City Development Institution the public utility of Kryvyi Rih City Council supported by Kryvyi Rih City Council Executive Committee, Local Economic Development of Ukrainian Cities Project and Decentralization Support in Ukraine, Swiss-Ukrainian project DESPRO. Among tasks discussed by Forum's participants was empowerment of City Development Institutions, dynamic partnership between city authorities and businesses, attraction of investments, building and implementation of innovative projects, forecast planning, arrangement of conditions for cooperation and setting up the constructive dialogue between Ukrainian and foreign institutions to put projects into life which will help Ukrainian cities to develop faster and more effective. The forum was meeting for two days. The participants discussed urgent issues related key activities of city development institutions and their cooperation with corporate citizens and visited master classes on leading Ukrainian experts in local economic development. The publication 'City Development Institutions: concept, particularities, activities' was presented at the Forum. This is a catalogue of institutions operating in Ukraine, which discloses theoretical and practical details of their activities. The tangible outcome of the Forum was the decision to build a network of local development institutions comprising the most active organizations whose activities successfully support local economic and social development in their communities.

Paramjit Kahlon, Acting CEO of ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih: "We at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih are very proud to host the second Forum for the Local Development Institutions. I am pleased that business and government have become partners in the solution of the economic and social development issues, and that the changes for better take place with the company's investments. This is the best indicator of effectiveness of this partnership. Every year the plant allocates significant resources for development of the city. For example, in 2014 committed to Kryvyi Rih UAH 15 million as part of the social agreement. These funds will have been spent on road repairs, installation of new lighting systems, repair of trolleybuses. Also we are preparing for construction of the park near the Palace of Youth and Students. We have a lot of other projects which help the city to develop, creating opportunities for personal and professional development of its residents. I am confident that this Forum will help success of city development and people will see the result such as repaired roads, clean and light streets. Every year ArcelorMittal Group invests millions of dollars in implementation of social projects in different countries where the group operates. All this promotes the development of communities where our company operates."