Reforms is a Watchword: The first Kiev economic forum has been held

Reforms is a Watchword: The first Kiev economic forum has been held

On 2 October the first Kiev economic forum brought together government officials, foreign and domestic economic experts, representative of business community and media. The keynote topic addressed at the venue was reforms.

In these times the word “reform” is a watchword in Ukraine. The audience was unanimous in its conclusion that the government in power has no other chance than to start carrying out reforms – judiciously and quickly.

Using the crisis as a pivotal moment for big bang reforms was sounded by many experts.

It is a challenging time for the country when it has, on one hand, to reform its economy and fight a war for its territorial integrity.

As the acting Minister of economy Anatoliy Maksyuta said, the reforms should be aligned with the recently signed Association agreement. Apart from the so-called horizontal reforms, an industrial approach should be worked out and carefully applied, he said.

Valeriy Fischuk, regional manager for interaction with the public sector at the representation of Cisco in Ukraine, is sure that Ukraine has to stake on innovations that are the key instrument to reach the state’s objectives. As the country leaves in a position of catching up, the solution is a “leap”. It means ultra-innovations provided quickly and cheaply.

“The EU expects that IT is at the heart of everything you could do”, commented Trudy Norris-Grey, Central & Eastern European managing director, Microsoft.

The expert panel on public-private partnership revealed that reload (or its absence at the moment) is a direct consequence of the lack of political will. The foreign-invited guests were ultimately emphasizing this evidence in a straightforward manner.

Grzegorz Kolodko, deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Poland (1994-1997 and 2002-2003), admitted that politicians are always dependant on finance. “Corruption is an art when everything seems legal, even elegant”, he said, although ethics is a key word in this regard. “Economy must be run by the law, not by people”, he said.

Oleg Makarov, the managing partner of Vasil Kisil & Partners, outlined the importance of the win-win principle for reloading this partnership. Otherwise, if the state does not fulfill its fundamental functions, then business will not meet its commitments – not pay taxes, operate in shadow schemes, etc.

The audience supported another important message addressing the government in power for calling to stop complaining and to moving to concrete actions for reforms. Juhan Parts, Prime Minister of Estonia from 2003 to 2005, said that there is no sense to talk about the sectors which should be competitive on global markets, when such a huge part of the economy functions in the shadow sector without paying taxes. “I really recommend focusing on fundamentals. No compromises for the basic principles and start just now, tomorrow. Paying taxes, fire corrupt officials, corrupt politicians – putting key institutions into function – just now. And you’ll get an immediate effect”.