The head of the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) Oleksiy Honcharuk announced this point of view at a press conference “Doing Business 2017: reform season’s results”. Ukraine is currently ranked the 83rd of 189 countries in this ranking.
“According to preliminary estimates, our position is increasing by 10-13 points in the current ranking, a number of regulations designed to provide it have been developed and adopted during the year. Thus, we resolved the issue of protecting the rights of minority shareholders. There were also changes in the area related to registration of property rights. Progress was achieved in other areas as well. For example, the regulation of the Ministry of Economic Development abolished a mandatory certification procedure for automobile parts. Our major achievements include reducing the rate and time needed to administer a unified social tax,” Oleksiy Honcharuk said and added that despite this, Ukraine won’t be ranked below the 70th place in the ranking.
The head of BRDO also noted that progress in the ranking can’t be a goal in itself, but the ranking is a kind of designation for reforming to improve the country’s investment climate in the context of the world economy.
“There was no point in expecting a rapid growth of conditions to create a more comfortable business climate in our reality. After all, more than 20 draft laws designed to implement the Government’s Action Plan on improving Ukraine’s positions in the ranking are still drafts laws,” the head of BRDO stressed.
Honcharuk explained that if the Verkhovna Rada gave due consideration to these issues, the effect could be much better – about 10 key positions of the ranking, which ‘cost’ about 600-700 million dollars of potential investments.
“The Ministry of Economic Development together with the BRDO developed a Roadmap, which consists of 43 steps for Ukraine to enter the TOP 20 of the Doing Business ranking, for a period of two years. There are many laws that have been already drafted to implement some of these steps. In particular, 13 draft laws were registered in the Verkhovna Rada, another draft laws are waiting to be registered. We had a very fruitful year and carried out a huge preparatory work to implement the above mentioned Roadmap. It aims at improving the business climate in the country and resolving painful issues of the Ukrainian business. The Doing Business ranking is a convenient tool to measure changes for both the Ukrainians and international partners. We are optimistic about the future and hope that the cooperation with the Rada will be more effective this year,” the project manager of the Deregulation reform Dmytro Romanovych said.
In general, the press conference participants stressed that there was no time to adopt the laws, which could significantly improve the regulatory framework and the Ukraine’s position in the ranking of 2017. However, there are still 4 months to work with the World Bank’s experts in carrying out surveys and adapting approved initiatives.
“Doing Business is actually one of the few stable and measuring “pictures” of the future. I hope that the government and the Verkhovna Rada will consolidate their efforts to accelerate the pace of implementing the best regulatory practices and make a significant jump in the ranking next year. We have already made all necessary work for this,” Oleksiy Honcharuk said.
He also added that with the purpose to explain the importance of each legislative initiative from the BRDO, he created a special information website where everyone can analyze opportunities for economic development of Ukraine and positions in the ranking – http://db.brdo.com.ua/.