The Ukraine Recovery Conference being held in Berlin has seen more than 100 agreements signed, German Development Minister Svenja Schulze said on Wednesday, the final day of the two-day conference.

The agreements, drawing in business and governments, include loans for small businesses, more city partnerships and training initiatives, Schulze said speaking alongside Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who also serves as minister of the economy.

Four dimensions have been defined: business, human, local and the European Union.

The conference, which is not being seen as a donor conference but rather a networking forum, was attended by more than 3,000 representatives from politics, business and international organizations.

Germany and Ukraine, plus 12 other countries and 17 development organizations have formed an alliance to boost small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

“Ukraine needs a strong economy to survive the war and to reconstruct what has been destroyed,” Schulze said.

SMEs are seen as the backbone of the Ukrainian economy, providing two thirds of value creation and providing 80% of jobs, according to German government figures.

The new alliance aims to provide favourable loans for these companies to the amount of €4.5 billion ($4.9 billion), bringing the total from this and current programmes to more than €7 billion.

Svyrydenko said that SMEs were playing “a key role for the country’s reconstruction.” Medium-sized companies had been hit particularly hard by the Russian invasion, she said, adding that the new alliance would make a decisive contribution to Ukraine’s resilience and future.

Speaking to a forum of German and Ukrainian mayors, Schulze called for more city partnerships, “so that each Ukrainian municipality has at least one international partner.” Among those attending were Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

The German-Ukrainian partnership network is made up of more than 200 local authorities, while Ukrainian towns have partnerships with 2,200 municipalities in around 60 countries, in particular in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Romania and Lithuania.

Ukraine’s smaller towns lacked such partnerships and it was necessary to get all on board ahead of potential integration into the European Union, Schulze said.

The conference also saw the launch of a training initiative for 180,000 skilled workers for the reconstruction. “No matter how often Russia destroys power lines, hospitals and buildings, the Ukrainians will have the knowledge and the skills to rebuild them,” Schulze said on the conference’s first day.