The administration of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, is ready to “sell the country” to Western investors and make it more attractive for foreign investments. This was stated by the secretary of the National Investment Council of Ukraine and a member of the “Servant of the People” party, David Arakhamia, on the TV channel “Our”.
“If we talk about what we can do today, we can form the process of“ selling ”the country. We need to send signals to investors that there are hidden opportunities here, ”he responded to a question from a leading television channel, what Zelensky’s team is going to do to attract foreign funds into the country.
“Today investors have a very large surplus of money in the world. Negative interest rates in Europe for deposits, in America there is a lot of money and everyone is looking for secret deposits of opportunities. We, as a new team, need to give a signal, and the money will come themselves, ”Arakhamia added.
However, the host of the program noted that according to World Bank forecasts, investments in the economy of Ukraine in 2019 will be about $ 2 billion, while “foreign workers” (Ukrainians who work abroad) send from $ 10 billion to $ 12 billion to the country.
According to a member of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of Russia, Bogdan Bezpalko, the words of Arahamia can be regarded as a “Freudian reservation”.
“Now assets in Ukraine, which are interesting to Western investors, will be sold at a small price or for nothing to international companies and transnational corporations - this is what they expect from Zelensky, and this is what he most likely will do to please foreign partners, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.
In turn, the Ukrainian political scientist, director of the Institute of Global Strategies Vadim Karasev expressed the opinion that the statement of a member of the Zelensky team can be interpreted as the words of a person who is far from Ukrainian politics.
“Representatives of the Zelensky team want to make the party“ Servant of the People ”libertarian, which means“ fly and buy ”. I think this is just a statement by a non-professional politician. However, this does not mean that you need to relax and wait for the team of the president of Ukraine to conduct a sane economic course, ”explained Karasev.
"Hidden features"
According to Bohdan Bezpalko, the Zelensky team can understand the lifting of restrictions on trade in natural resources, such as wood, as the hidden opportunities that Arakhamia talked about.
“Even under Poroshenko, the government of Ukraine sought to eliminate the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land, and the EU constantly sought to lift any restrictions on the sale of roundwood,” the expert recalled.
In the summer of 2018, the British NPO Earthsight, dealing with the problem of illegal logging, released a report stating that since 2014, forest exports from Ukraine to the EU countries increased by 75% to € 1 billion in 2017.
At the same time, the report noted that European consumers deliberately violated the law by purchasing illegally mined wood from Ukraine.
Uncontrolled deforestation led to severe flooding in Transcarpathia. At the end of May, there were heavy rains in the region - the remaining trees after cutting down did not restrain the flow of mud and water from the mountains, which flooded 25 settlements.
Bezpalko added that in the event of a certain development of events, foreign investors can also start buying Ukrainian agricultural land. Vladimir Zelensky himself promised to remove the moratorium on their sale - according to him, this will become possible after the formation of the new Verkhovna Rada.
The expert added that in these lands most likely they will grow soil-depleting crops like rapeseed, which are used to make biofuels.
“However, successful investments - investing in high-tech enterprises, whose products have a high degree of added value, and which create a large number of jobs and develop the economy - today Ukraine does not threaten this kind of investment, even if it succeeds in eradicating corruption,” Bezpalko believes .
Commenting on the thesis about the “hidden opportunities” of Ukraine, political scientist Rostislav Ischenko said in an interview with RT that the only hidden opportunity available to Kiev is the free sale of land, under which the authorities expect to receive some kind of investment.
“But I doubt that foreign investment will flow into the country if Ukrainians take to sell land. Because it requires internal stability. Foreign investors do not need to buy Ukrainian land, since it will be difficult to collect something on it and to sell it, ”the expert added.
Association Disappointment
The attractiveness of Ukraine in the eyes of foreign investors is also reduced due to the direct dependence of the country on Europe - both in financial and credit terms, and because of the enslaving conditions of the association agreement with the EU. About the rashness of this step, the administration of Petro Poroshenko started talking in Kiev.
Thus, the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Mikhail Poplavsky, on the air of the ZIK TV channel, said that European countries see in Ukraine only a market for selling low-quality goods. According to him, the signing of an association agreement with the European Union only hurt Ukraine, since the EU is only thinking about its own benefit.
“There, no one thinks about us. This is a very beautiful word “association with the EU”. For example, PACE supported Russia, they returned. And Germany supported, and France, and all supported. The Poles say: “If you don’t know what the problem is, the problem is money,” said the parliamentarian.
- Secretary of the National Investment Council of Ukraine and member of the Servant of the People Party David Arakhamia
- © David Braun
Recall that the signing of an association agreement with the EU was one of the requirements that the participants of the “Maidan” put forward to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. After the coup d'état in the country, the document from the Ukrainian side was signed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
The position of the agreement on a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union began to operate in 2016. At the same time, according to the established quota system, Ukraine can supply only 36 types of goods to European markets that are not subject to duties. After using these quotas, but in reality they are exhausted in one to two months, Ukrainian goods lose preferential terms of implementation.
At the end of May, Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the Opposition Platform - For Life Party, said that this situation adversely affects the country's economy, and the agreement needs to be revised.
“We can no longer continue to tolerate the destructiveness of the free trade zone with the European Union in relation to our country because its conditions destroy our country economically,” Medvedchuk said on the TV channel “112 Ukraine”.
Lack of confidence
One of the reasons for the low level of Western investment in the Ukrainian economy is the lack of a sufficient level of trust in this economy among investors, Bogdan Bezpalko said.
“This is reflected in the various economic ratings of Ukraine, which so far are not encouraging. If there was a high degree of trust, then investors would have invested a lot of money in Kiev, but for now they only pump out labor and raw materials from there, ”said the expert.
In turn, Vadim Karasev recalled that the problem of the deficit and the lack of foreign direct investment in Ukraine are connected, including the lack of a normal judicial system, the presence of corruption and the unresolved problem of the conflict in Donbas.
“The presidential team needs to present a detailed plan for the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the settlement of the conflict in the Donbas, before Kiev will“ sell the country ”in exchange for direct investment. Only after that can we expect large investments, and before that, the authorities can only develop hypotheses on this score, ”he explained.
According to Karasev, only when a consistent course is developed in Kiev and the internal conflict stabilizes, will investors have a certain confidence and confidence in Ukraine.
“So far there are none, since Ukraine has been in the turbulence zone for more than ten years,” added Karasyov.
At the same time, Rostislav Ischenko doubts that the new president’s team will be able to attract foreign capital to Ukraine, even beckoning investors with “hidden opportunities”.
“Zelensky will not do anything to attract investments for the development of Ukraine, it will just be as usual to talk. Investments did not go before and now will not. If there is a complete collapse in the country and a complete inadequacy of the political and legal system, then there is no place for foreigners to invest, ”the expert concluded.