Ukraine's mining industry has suffered losses of about 70 trillion hryvnias ($1.7 trillion) due to the occupation of territories by the Russians and ongoing hostilities. This was stated by [[/link_direct]] Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Svitlana Hrynchuk in an interview for Reuters , according to Dengi.ua .
The Minister noted that now the share of the extractive industry is only 4% of Ukraine's GDP, but the state is already working on its restructuring. According to Hrynchuk, at the moment the Government of Ukraine, together with the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is engaged in a project to digitalize up to 80% of geological data from the Soviet period. This work is already about 40% complete.
At the same time, the government is revising the current 3,000 mining licenses, and the process is scheduled to be completed this year and next year. Grinchuk estimates that about 10% of them may be inactive. The Minister also noted that in 2024, 2.4 billion hryvnias were received at auctions from the sale of 120 licenses. In the same year, the state has already issued 32 licenses, most of which relate to materials for construction. In particular, these are clay, sand, marble, granite and amber.
In turn, investors, which are now mostly domestic, are most interested in licenses for the exploration of oil and gas, as well as minerals such as titanium, graphite and manganese.
