From now on, starting a business in Ukraine is not a challenge anymore! Bringing it into reality and creating a more favorable business climate in the country is the goal of the BRDO and one of the Government’s priorities. A year ago, BRDO presented a PRO Platform for more effective online interaction between the state and the business. Today, the state information service Start Business Challenge contains already 100 business cases with step-by-step instructions to start your own business, and entrepreneurs can obtain all the necessary reliable information for business registration in one place quickly and free of charge.
BRDO is actively involving local authorities in regions, employment centers, and financial institutions in creating a more favorable business environment. On October 25, the Start Business Challenge 2018, which was held under the support of the EU4Business|FORBIZ initiative as part of the European Entrepreneurship Week, brought together the business and partners in Kyiv.
“Small and medium entrepreneurship is a driver of the European economy, and its impact cannot be overstated. Business develops when there is a favorable environment created for it: clear rules in the market and available financial instruments. I hope the Start Business Challenge platform will be a powerful stimulus for business development in Ukraine, as the EU pays particular attention to supporting efforts to improve the business climate in the country,” the FORBIZ Project Manager in Ukraine Matthias Halder said.
The information service helps entrepreneurs to deal with the documents and procedures necessary to start own business legally. According to the portal’s statistics, family doctor’s offices, electric charging stations, mini bakeries, restaurants, foreign language courses, and kindergartens were the most popular business cases in the past year. It is worthy of note that the number of business entities in the relevant economic activity types classification (KVED) also increased during January-October 2018. In addition, the platform accumulates information on the most demanded procedures for businesses: from state registration of self-employed individuals, creating a legal entity and registration by a single tax payer to connecting to electricity networks and registration of cash registers.
“Step by step we work to ensure that starting a business in Ukraine is no longer a challenge. Today, already 100 business cases are available on our platform, and since the procedures have their own specifics at the local level, we have also created functions for their localization. Bring your ideas to life, go for it! We are here for you and do our best to make it easier for you to start your business working more comfortable,” the BRDO Head Oleksiy Honcharuk stressed.
For example, connection to electricity grids, land registration, obtaining construction permits, and some aspects of taxation are regulated by regulatory acts on the local level. Therefore, BRDO experts created an opportunity for local authorities to access their personal profiles on the platform and provide residents of their cities with full information to open a business: how many procedures are to be completed and what documents to get, where to apply, how much it costs and how long it takes and so on.
Today, regulatory bodies of 12 Ukrainian cities are working on the platform: Zhytomyr, Mykolayv, Chernivtsi, Odesa, Drohobych, Poltava, Popasna, Uzhhorod, and Lysychansk in particular. The leaders are Vinnytsya, Sumy, and Ternopil, which have already localized all 100 cases. Kyiv, Obukhiv, Irpin, Khmelnytsky, and Chernihiv began to work with their first cases, and Lutsk and Mariupol will get involved within the few days. Restaurants, kindergartens, and taxi services are the most popular cases in the regions.
During the event, representatives of the State Employment Center, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, and the Kyiv City State Administration spoke about entrepreneurship programs and their services for business. Ukrainian entrepreneurs including Maksym Bakhmatov, UNIT.city Managing Partner, Anna Petrova, founder of StartUp Ukraine and Leonid Ostaltsev, founder of Veterano Group, also shared their success stories and specifics of setting up your own business.
As part of the Start Business Challenge, a workshop with legal advices and financial consultations from the BRDO, Oshchadbank, Pryvatbank, and German-Ukrainian Fund regarding a range of business cases was also held.
The event was attended by the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Maksym Nefyodov, the Deputy Head of the State Employment Service Yuliya Zhovtyak, the Deputy Director of the Kyiv City State Administration’s Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development Nataliya Kondrashova, the Acting Head of the German-Ukrainian Fund Valeriy Mayboroda, the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Oschadbank Andriy Stetsevych, the Advisor to the Privatbank Chairman Yuriy Husev and numerous business community representatives.
More details at www.sbc.regulation.gov.ua.