Ukrainian Company Invests in Pennsylvania

Orange Pavers

International businesses thrive in Pennsylvania. But when looking for a potential location in the United States, many businesses can find it a daunting process. Thankfully, the Pennsylvania Office of International Business Development (OIBD) and its 13 overseas offices can help businesses navigate the process of setting up a U.S. entity in Pennsylvania, finding suitable sites, connecting with local officials and organizations, and more.

One such company is Orange Pavers, a Ukrainian producer of concrete pavers and ready-mix concrete. Supported by OIBD, Orange Pavers is opening a manufacturing facility in Jackson Township, Monroe County. We spoke to Yevgen Chernetskyy and Roman Romanov, co-founders of Orange Pavers, to talk about the company’s plans and why they selected Pennsylvania as the location for their new facility.

At a certain point in time during many foreign companies’ growth, company executives often begin to look toward expanding into the United States market. For Orange Pavers, a producer of concrete pavers and ready-mix concrete which has been in operation in Ukraine since 1998, that moment came in 2014 after regional tensions met a boiling point. “After the Russian invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine in 2014, there was a growing understanding that operating exclusively in Ukraine came with a huge amount of risk,” Yevgen Chernetskyy, CEO and co-founder of Orange Pavers, said. “Many Ukrainian companies, including ours, began looking at safe investments in other markets.” After several years of planning and deliberation, cofounders Chernetskyy and Roman Romanov committed to expanding in the U.S. in early 2020.

For Orange Pavers, which requires a large amount of raw materials to operate, Pennsylvania was a natural fit. “Pennsylvania is a great location for us because it’s very close to major metropolitan areas, which means lots of demand for projects and easy interstate access to reach those areas,” Romanov said. “Also, it’s very cost-efficient because raw quarry materials are close by, and moving those materials can be a very costly and logistically demanding process.”

PA Investment Services Make Local Connections

Of course, early 2020 also saw the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which would temporarily derail their expansion plans. But they never stopped working, and after purchasing land in Jackson Township, Monroe County – located in Northeast Pennsylvania – in February of 2020 right before the pandemic, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine put Yevgen and Roman in touch with the Pennsylvania Office of International Business Development (OIBD).

“Pennsylvania is a great location for us because it’s very close to major metropolitan areas, which means lots of demand for projects and easy interstate access to reach those areas.”
-Roman Romanov, Co-Founder of Orange Pavers

“OIBD really helped us make the connections we need in Pennsylvania, like East Stroudsburg University who assisted us with workforce training, as well as the local Chamber of Commerce,” Chernetskyy said. Those connections helped Orange Pavers obtain a building permit for an 80,000-square-foot development that will employ approximately 120 machine operators, engineers, and logistics and administrative staff upon full employment. OIBD also helped Orange Pavers obtain financing from a local bank, connect with legal and accounting support, and sort out various technical issues that the company experienced in the process of establishing operations – in which conditions were even more difficult than usual due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“OIBD has been almost like a concierge service to us,” Chernetskyy said. “In Ukraine, we would usually try to avoid help from government officials because it would do more harm than good. But OIBD has been so helpful to us and it completely changed our view of the support the Pennsylvania government could provide.”

As construction nears completion in its stated goal of Q1 2023, Orange Pavers still works with OIBD regularly and helps get the word out about investment services to other Ukrainian companies. The end goal of the Monroe County development isn’t just to house Orange Pavers, but a host of similar construction and industrial companies that compliment one another. The result will be a strong foundation for growth for the companies located there as well as a significant boost to the local economy and workforce.

Throughout the process, OIBD has been assisting Orange Pavers at every step. In addition to the core OIBD team located in Harrisburg, the office’s 13 authorized trade representatives and 10 regional export network partners support domestic and foreign businesses in markets across the globe. OIBD is a major part of why Pennsylvania is a thriving global competitor in trade and investment. In fact, nearly 5,000 foreign-owned company locations employing more than 274,000 workers have business operations in Pennsylvania.

To learn more about the Pennsylvania Office of International Business Development, visit the DCED website. You may also contact the Harrisburg OIBD team or OIBD’s global investment representative in your country. Stay up-to-date on DCED news by following us on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.