OREANDA-NEWS. Finland's Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Kai Mykkänen will visit the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Kiev on 12–14 September.

On 13 September, Mykkänen will inaugurate an energy-efficient school donated by Finland in the city of Kherson. The school is located in southern Ukraine, which has seen a flood of refugees from eastern Ukraine and Crimea following the Ukrainian crisis. The school was built with Finnish development cooperation funds and the project was carried out by the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation NEFCO. The school was completed by Elemenco, a Finnish company.

Finland has been providing support to Ukraine (a total of €24 million) since the conflict there began in 2014, including humanitarian and development cooperation aid and expertise. The school project, worth a total of €2.75 million was Finland’s largest single effort in Ukraine.

Mykkänen will also give an opening speech at a seminar organised in Kiev by the Finnish Energy Club with about a dozen Finnish companies from the energy sector participating. The purpose of the event is to market Finnish expertise, in particular to the direction of projects contributing to energy efficiency in Ukraine, which receive funding from international financial institutions.

During the visit, Mykkänen will meet the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister for Economic Development and Trade, Stepan Kubiv; Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development, Hennadiy Zubko; Vice Prime Minister and Minister for European Integration, Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, and local government representatives from the Kherson area.