The mayor's office reported on what is being done to restore business in Mykolaiv

Entrepreneur Anastasiia Martsypan in her carpentry workshop, photo by NikVesti

The Mykolaiv City Council explained how it supports business during the war: entrepreneurs are interviewed through Google forms, problematic issues are collected and help to join grant programmes.

This is stated in the document «On the forecast of the budget of the Mykolaiv city territorial community for 2026-2028», NikVesti.

According to the regional tax service, in early 2025 alone, the number of new businesses in the city increased by 708 legal entities and more than 4,000 individual entrepreneurs. At the same time, the rate of business relocation from Mykolaiv decreased by 3.5 times.

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«In order to facilitate the resumption of the city's enterprises, work is underway to collect problematic issues by filling out a Google form among the city's business entities to find out the needs and solutions», the document says.

At the same time, with the help of the UN Programme, retraining courses have been organised, and information support is being provided to enterprises that want to join international and national grant programmes.

In 2024, the city held regular consultations with experts on grants, and published relevant business opportunities on the official resources of the city hall every week. In particular, 18 companies from the BOOST Impact Acceleration Programme launched the Innovation Challenge acceleration programme in Mykolaiv.

As part of the «Mayors for Economic Growth» initiative, 7 entrepreneurs were selected to receive financial support for the development of the «blue» economy.

Today, the city has an infrastructure for business: three ASCs, the Mykolaiv Recovery Office (established by Denmark and UNDP), and the PortfolioHUB space. Separately, the mayor's office is working on large-scale investment projects, including

• creation of the Mykolaiv Industrial Park, which is to become a centre for investment and jobs;

• construction of the Water Palace, which should give a boost to socio-economic development;

• revitalisation of the shipyard, which will transform the former industrial zone into a modern space with residential, commercial and recreational areas.

In addition, as part of the city's Masterplan, it is planned to create the Mykolaiv Innovation District, a future hub for start-ups, researchers, businesses and investors.

The mayor's office predicts that as early as 2026, subject to the reduction of security risks, the city's economy will be able to resume growth due to increased consumer demand, improved logistics and new investments, in particular as part of European integration processes.

As a reminder, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych is promoting the idea of creating a special economic zone for frontline cities. In October 2024, he stated that Mykolaiv would not be able to develop without tax incentives, as the city was losing investors and losing ground to other regions due to high business risks. In April 2025, Sienkevych discussed this initiative with representatives of the Danish Export-Import Fund, and is currently preparing a draft law that he plans to submit to MPs from the region for promotion in parliament.

Despite the fact that Mykolaiv has had state and international grant programmes for business support since 2014, as of August 2025, the region still has a negative trend: the number of closed individual entrepreneurs exceeds the number of newly established ones.

Read also: «Unconquered market: How is the war transforming business in the south?»