KYIV. April 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The representative office of the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (ULIE), which opened in Brussels on April 21, 2015, will help Ukrainian entrepreneurs to search for business partners, investors and sales markets in Europe, the ULIE’s press service reported.
According to ULIE President Anatoliy Kinakh, this is extremely important as it is being carried out before the establishment of a free trade area between Ukraine and the European Union (EU), which will become effective as of January 1, 2016.
“We will suggest focusing on the development of the industrial sphere as well as small- and medium-sized businesses, which are the backbone of the economy, create jobs, and generate tax revenues for the national budget. It’s of paramount importance under the conditions of economic crisis and before the changes Ukrainian enterprises will face following the full inauguration of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) between Ukraine and the EU next year,” Kinakh said.
According to him, Ukraine has to speed up the adaptation of its legislation to free trade conditions with the EU today. In particular, Ukraine should speed up the introduction of EU technical and sanitary standards, mutual recognition of certificates of conformity for products, and the harmonization of tax legislation with EU norms and regulations.
The ULIE Office is developing cooperation with all of the EU institutions – the European Parliament (EP), the European Commission (EC), the External Action Service, etc. – in order to intensify the European integration process. Its relations with BUSINESSEUROPE – the leading EU organization of entrepreneurs and employers including more than 40 national entrepreneurs’ associations of European businesses, are also very important.
The ULIE Office is planning to include the Ukrainian side in talks on the possible revision of the EU Neighborhood Policy concerning Ukraine, especially its businesses. “European support is almost unavailable for Ukrainian businesses, first of all, because of unrealistic conditions of crediting. We will raise this issue when communicating with our European colleagues in order to change the situation, streamline cooperation mechanisms with nowadays reality, and bring specific results,” Kinakh said.
The ULIE Office in Brussels will carry out a very important information function – giving Ukrainian businesses an opportunity to learn about various EU institutions’ programs.
The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency was the media partner of the Office opening in Brussels and has set up a specific information product – Ukraine Open for Business – containing Ukrainian business news for Europeans, which will help European partners better understand Ukrainian economic trends and prospects.
KYIV. April 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Preconditions to develop competition between medical centers of various forms of ownership should be created to develop insurance medicine in Ukraine, Director General of Dila medical laboratory Oleksiy Babich has said.
“The creation of the state insurance company is an absolutely corrupted idea. Until there is real competition between private insurance companies there will be no real, not nominal, insurance medicine. Until there is competition between the state, municipal and private healthcare centers for the money of insurance companies and competition for patients and skilled doctors, there will not be high-quality medical services,” he said.
Commenting on the prospects of the introduction of insurance medicine in Ukraine and reform of the healthcare system in general, Babich said that insurance medicine will appear in 10 years through evolution, not earlier, while there is no healthcare system in the country.
Babich said that clear treatment protocols and the calculated cost of medical services should exist for the introduction of insurance medicine. He said he was perplexed over the fact that the healthcare system has not yet been calculated, as it is simple to do this.
He said that healthcare centers will only be efficient when they have owners.
“The country needs reforms, but those who are to introduce them do not need reforms: healthcare administrators and doctors,” the expert said. He said that doctors understand that their income will fall considerably, bad doctors will be left without jobs, and administrators will have to change greatly.
“The only possibility of reforming is the creation of the self-regulating system – competition between healthcare centers for the money of patients (insurance premiums). This competition will regulate the system in five or 10 years. Citizens are to decide themselves what insurance company to select to pay social security fees and they are to obtain the right to select hospitals where they will be treated,” Babich said.
KYIV. April 28 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced that the authorities will not agree to review the results of the country’s previous privatization campaigns.
“Today we are studying a list of state-run companies that should implement large-scale privatization programs… The goal of this process is very simple – we are not preparing to review previous privatization campaigns. We will not do so despite appeals from society. But we ought to destroy the monopoly of this small group of businessmen,” Poroshenko told an international conference in support of Ukraine in Kyiv on Tuesday.
KYIV. April 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Germany will issue EUR 1.4 billion to Ukraine in credits, financial assistance and grants, State Secretary of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs Markus Ederer has said.
While delivering a speech at the International Conference on Support for Ukraine in Kyiv, he said that this year Germany would issue EUR 70 million as part of bilateral assistance, and EUR 500 million as financial borrowing for budgetary support.
In addition, Ederer said that Germany will provide EUR 200 million in grants for the energy sector, energy efficiency, decentralization, civil society etc.
KYIV. April 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Commission has decided to provide EUR 110 million to Ukraine to develop small and medium-sized enterprises (SME).
“As part of the EU’s EUR 11 billion package supporting Ukraine, the European Commission has adopted a Special Measure for Private Sector Development and Approximation worth €70 million. This measure is a response to the urgent need to support the recovery and economic development in Ukraine. It will notably help SMEs across the regions of Ukraine, boosting jobs and growth. It will be complemented by a €40 million loan guarantee facility channelled through the Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF) which will also ease access to finance for Ukrainian businesses,” reads a press release of the European Commission issued on Tuesday.
These measures will be focused in particular on the regions that have been most affected by the conflict.
“The development of small and medium enterprises (SME) has a crucial role to play in creating growth and job opportunities. By supporting an enabling environment to invest, by providing business development services at regional level and by addressing some of the obstacles to SME development such as access to finance, the EU is contributing to economic recovery, in particular in the regions most affected by the need to integrate internally displaced persons,” European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Commissioner Johannes Hahn said.
KYIV. April 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the early signing of the Open Skies Agreement between Ukraine and the EU is important.
“The early signing of the agreement on general airspace in 2015 remains the key priority of cooperation in the transport-related sphere and we have defined reporting points that will speed up this process,” Poroshenko said at a joint press conference with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Kyiv on Monday.
