IC ARTA Sponsors the IV Ukrainian Municipal Forum

The Investment Company ARTA acted as co-sponsor of the IV Ukrainian Municipal Forum intended for the representatives of Ukrainian municipal authorities which took place on October 2-4, 2008 in the International Children Center ARTEK (the Crimea). The organizers of the event were the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the rating agency Credit Rating.

The main targets of the Forum were exchange of experience in municipal loans raising, as well as investigating current problems in municipal strategic development and municipal infrastructure development by means of debt financing.

In the course of the conference, Larisa Primenko, Director of ARTA, spoke on the topic: “Options for municipal loan raising and their benefits. Terms of debt financing and municipal bond issuing“. Ms. Primenko said that “nowadays, virtually all Ukraine’s cities and towns have already an experience in debt raising aimed at municipal infrastructure development and energy saving projects.” She informed that “ARTA is an active underwriter of several municipal bond issues held in 2005 and 2008. And notwithstanding negative trends in the local and world markets caused by financial crisis, the municipal loan market is expected to keep on developing in the mid-term outlook”.

Also, the participants of the Forum discussed a number of proposals regarding introducing amendments into the regulatory legislation in force which covers numerous issues concerning Ukrainian and international municipal loan markets.

Over 300 participants visited the Forum, among them the representatives of municipal and state authorities, USAID, KfW, GTZ, EBRD etc.

NOTE:

ARTA Investment Group includes ARTA Investment Partners Ltd., ARTA Securities Ltd., and ARTA Assets Management Ltd. Since 2002, ARTA provides a full range of investment banking services including brokerage, corporate finance and asset management. ARTA has attracted approx USD 1.5 billion of investments to the local market.