President instructed the Cabinet to create a group tasked with tackling pressure on the business community

Ukraine will get yet another body established to improve the business environment and help in stopping pressure on the business community. “The presidential instruction calls for a working group to be created at once, so that it will develop an action plan by September 18 that will eliminate law-enforcement agencies’ pressure on the business community,” Borys Kolesnikov, a Party of Regions MP, stated following the faction’s meeting with the president. However, he denied allegations that some MPs complained of pressure exerted on their businesses. “You know, the Soviet Union had a disciplined government, and once upon the time, Mikhail Gorbachev summoned his interior minister and told him: ‘As soon as you raid a co-op (Soviet jargon for private businesses), you will leave your insignia right in this room.’ Yanukovych is equally determined,” the MP said. When asked who will lead the group, Kolesnikov answered that it “does not matter, the position will go either to Tihipko or to myself.” The Day asked experts to assess this initiative.

COMMENTARIES

Natalia KOZHEVINA, president of the Ukrainian Association of Business Incubators and Innovation Centers, chairwoman of the Union of Small- and Medium-sized Businesses “Unity”:

“The president said the right thing. We need such a group today as small- and medium-sized businesses do need such support. The pressure on business increased, and it devours everything in its path like floating mist, while we still need to go on with our lives somehow and to create jobs. After all, development throughout the world was enabled to a large extent by jobs created at small- and medium-sized businesses. We should give a chance to small businesses now. Administrative pressure on the business community is very strong, as bureaucrats have seized power and actually pinned the whole country to the mat. We need some serious agencies to break the grip of this arbitrary power. No business activity is currently possible without bribing, and corruption expenses suck the businesses’ incomes dry. Such a group should be formed primarily from NGOs, industry associations and trade unions members. The government should heed their advice.”

Serhii PROKHOROV, the first vice-president of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs:

“I have a rule that only practice is the criterion of truth. However, we have to make sure that the baby will not get thrown out with the bath water. We run a risk that the problem will be talked into oblivion. Both the Cabinet and the State Committee of Ukraine for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship have enough leverage already to effect a real change for the better. There is a lot to change, too. For example, the business community is not happy with the trade barriers erected at the Russian border. It expects more vigorous response from the authorities. In my opinion, this group should include representatives of business NGOs and trade associations, that is, the people who actually create our GDP and real jobs. We hope that the commission’s work will have desired effect. I would recommend it to start with a few issues. First thing is to resolve trade tensions with Russia. Let Tihipko or Kolesnikov go to Russia and relieve this border pressure, as Poroshenko went and negotiated during his time on the top. After all, everybody clearly sees a political component in the crisis, so the businesses are suffering for nothing.

“The second issue is access to credit. Banks are now boasting deposit increases and lower deposit rates, but access to credit is still absent. Let us hold a meeting of businesspeople and bankers then, so that we will stop looking at each other over the distrust barricades. This is an important component of normal business environment.”