Dhe richest Australian is joining forces with other billionaires around the world to one day fund Ukraine’s reconstruction. Andrew Forrest promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy half a billion dollars when the war ended. The money comes from the Forrest family investment company.
Her “Family Office” Tattarang in Perth wants to provide start-up financing for a fund of initially 25 billion dollars. Also on board is Larry Fink, CEO of the American financial group Blackrock.
Only after the Russians retreated
The jointly launched Ukraine Green Growth Initiative fund will only start financing projects once Russia has completed its withdrawal and safe reconstruction can begin.
“The price of reconstruction increases with every bomb attack,” Zelenskyy said when announcing the reconstruction program. The money will not “replace the junk infrastructure from the communist era,” said the president, but will allow the government to switch to “the most modern technology.”
Forrest, the founder of the Fortescue Metals Group in Perth, assumes that the recovery fund will eventually reach a volume of 100 billion dollars. The Ukrainian government already estimates the construction costs at more than 750 billion dollars.
The Australian assumes a strong reconstruction phase in Ukraine: “Even someone with the shortest historical horizon will recognize the economic miracles of South Korea, Japan and Germany after the Second World War,” the Western Australian told the newspaper “The Australian Review”. “Ukrainians are strong, patriotic, energetic, highly educated and united in their will to rebuild their country.”
Forrest does not see the danger that the oligarchs in Ukraine could regain the upper hand after the end of the war: “The war seems like a major cleanup. They are working on a cashless economy, an economy without corruption. The old structures, like the oligarch system imported from Russia, are being bombed like the Russian infrastructure by the Russian military.”
Blackrock in charge of the project
The driver of the fund, which Forrest is now promoting globally, is Blackrock. The Americans had examined the country and its governance in detail. It is able to properly process large sums of money.
Forrest has become rich through his daring investments, particularly in iron ore. Among other things, his family foundation Minderoo publishes the annual Slavery Index, which denounces slave labor around the world.
In Ukraine, she is also involved in the transport of wheat, which a starving world urgently needs. In addition to the raw materials business, the Australian is now building a global empire of green technology.
He tries his hand at building and operating hydroelectric and solar power, particularly in developing countries. “Twiggy” Forrest’s startup, Fortescue Future Industries, is putting out feelers in all directions to serve world markets in the anticipated breakthrough of hydrogen.
