Volodymyr Shandra has been appointed Minister of Industrial Policy. Since May 2002 he has been an MP, elected on the “OU” Bloc’s list where he was #39. Strangely, he happens to be the only MP representing Khmelnytsky oblast and the only one whose picture is not available on the Supreme Rada website. In Parliament, Volodymyr Shandra was Deputy Chair of the Supreme Rada Committee for Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship, which explains why he was entrusted to lead the respective ministry.

Volodymyr Shandra was born on 11 January 1963 in the town of Zboriv, Ternopil oblast. In 1987, he graduated from Obninsk Institute for Atomic Energy in Moscow, specializing in nuclear power plants and facilities. In 1987-1992, he worked at Khmelnytsky NPP, first as an operator, later as a senior reactor-controlling engineer. In 1992-1995 he engaged in a fairly successful private business. In 1995, Shandra was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Public Joint Stock Company SLAVUTA RUBEROID PLANT. With innovation fund money and the introduction of leasing, he managed to modernize the production, re-equip an enterprise that manufactures high-quality commodities and is one of the major revenue contributors to the Slavuta town budget. Under his leadership, the plant has accounted for one third of the industrial production turnover in the town. Shandra does not belong to any oligarchic industrial group, which in the Ukrainian context means he is not a member of any party.

On the other hand, the fact that in summer 2002, (after Shandra was elected to Parliament) the plant he headed was subject to charges from the Khmelnytsky Division for Combating Organized Crime (a section of the Ministry of the Interior) and from the local prosecutor’s office (with sealing of their administrative premises and other attendant measures) linked, in the public perception, MP Volodymyr Shandra’s name with the ruberoid plant, i.e. the business. President Yushchenko has required that cabinet members separate their business interests from their work in public administration, bidding farewell to the former. It appears that the newly appointed Minister of Industrial Policy of Ukraine has yet to do it, and the sooner, the better.

People who have worked with Shandra for a long time characterize him as a man capable of coping with problems and mastering new fields of expertise. He is said hardly to feel at a loss in any situation, no matter how difficult. In making decisions, he prefers to listen to all sides, analyze their arguments and ensure that a decision, once taken, be quickly and fully implemented. Well, these are good traits for a minister, particularly given that he will have to master a lot of new areas of production, including metallurgy, ore mining and enriching, and chemical production, with a host of grave problems and conflicts of interests in each of them. He will have to deal with anti-dumping investigations against Ukrainian enterprises and restrictive measures, especially in view of Ukraine’s projected WTO accession, which means that he will have to handle an even wider scope of international issues than his predecessors.

Yet every cloud has a silver lining: faced with the problem of anti-dumping investigations and sanctions, primarily against Ukrainian ore-mining and metallurgical enterprises, Ukrainian officials, hopefully, have understood how the international markets are organized and how they operate, realized how important it is for Ukraine to gain market economy status (although the latter is not the most weighty argument in the international market). Hopefully, this experience will facilitate Ukraine’s WTO accession and the new minister will duly contribute to it.

Until now, Ukrainian industrial policy ministers have been absolutely out of the public eye, along with the ministry itself. We hope the new minister will change this, since industrial employees should know about current developments in their sector, no matter whether they work for a private or a state-owned enterprise.

Shandra’s peer MPs say he never acts recklessly, and praise his intellect and gentleness, although some see it as a weakness that could prevent him from acting decisively and effectively meeting the challenges that his ministry faces.

One way or another, the minister has been entrusted with a vital assignment. We hope he will live up to our expectations.