Small and Mid-size Business in Ukraine: analysis and road map
CASE launched a study on SME's situation in Ukraine. The publication was issued within the project ‘Transfer of Know-How for Small and Mid-size Businesses in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine’, which aims to assist SMEs in those countries by providing support to stakeholders in their efforts to develop analytical and policy advocacy capabilities, as well as by opening new channels of communication between SMEs and NGOs in the Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and the rest of the European Union. The paper is the first out of three stuides CASE will publish.
The key outcome of the paper is a road map – a very specific plan of actions including schedules, budgets, and other details within the scope of this project that will help the beneficiary country to cope with problems regarding the agenda of small and middle business development using the expertise and experience of institutions and stakeholders accumulated throughout the Slovak EU accession process.
Ukraine ranked 143rd (out of 148 countries) in terms of property rights in the World Economic Forum ranking. The poor performance results from the weak protection of the intellectual rights. When it comes to efficiency of legal framework in settling disputes and challenging regulations, the country was ranked 144th and 146th respectively. According to the study “All of these indicators deteriorated during the Yanukovich rule. In combination with other adverse factors, such as increasing tax pressure and lack of access to financing (to a large extent related to the poor protection of property rights), this has led to sharp decrease in the number of business entities per capita (from 67 per 1000 of population in 2009 to 35 in 2012).”
