47% of Ukrainians perceive corruption as the biggest obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in the country, according to a survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on July 3-17, 2023.
“According to the survey conducted in July 2023, corruption is perceived by citizens as the biggest obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in the country. This was noted by 47% of respondents. For comparison: 37% named the destruction caused by the war as the biggest obstacle, 36% – inadequate tax administration and control system, 36% – weak support from the state,” the report on the results of the study published on Monday on the official website of the Fund says.
As noted, “problems that directly depend on the quality of public administration occupy three of the top four positions that, according to Ukrainians, hinder the development of entrepreneurship. At the same time, the next most negative impact on entrepreneurship is the outflow of specialists and entrepreneurs abroad (29%) and the outflow of employees abroad (28%).”
Sociologists have recorded that corruption as an obstacle to entrepreneurship was mentioned somewhat more often in the East (55%) and less often in the West (43%) of the country. Similarly, critical attitudes toward tax control are noticeably increasing from the West (30%) to the East (43%). Respondents in the eastern (40%) and southern regions (33%) mentioned the outflow of specialists and entrepreneurs abroad more often than in the western (22%) and central regions (27%), which were less affected by the hostilities. The same situation is with the outflow of workers: it was mentioned more often in the east (37%) and south (31%) than in the west (25%) and center (24%).
“It is significant,” the report says, “that there is a distrust in society of domestic agents of post-war economic and infrastructure recovery. In particular, in July 2023, only 17.5% of respondents agreed with the opinion that state-owned Ukrainian companies and banks could effectively and without corruption carry out the country’s post-war recovery. The level of trust in Ukrainian private companies and banks is even lower – 8%.
Currently, large Western companies and banks (28%) and international financial organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank (19%) have the highest, but also low, levels of trust. Large non-Western companies and banks (China, UAE, Saudi Arabia) have the lowest level of trust – only 3% of respondents.
The survey was conducted face-to-face in all regions of Ukraine, except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. In Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions, the survey was conducted in the territories controlled by the Government of Ukraine and not subject to hostilities. 2011 respondents aged 18 and older were interviewed.
