Poroshenko talks reform with foreign investors
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 3, 2014) Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko reaffirmed to foreign investors that his goal is for Ukraine to ultimately join the European Union, and for this sweeping reforms are necessary.
“This involves a significant number of reforms and solving problems. It’s hardly possible to conduct 62 reforms simultaneously, but we have no choice,” Poroshenko told a meeting of foreign business representatives and investors in Kyiv, as quoted by the presidential press service.
Poroshenko said foregrounded judicial and anticorruption reforms. “The rule of law should be the key result of the reforms. Investors need it, citizens need it, the country needs it,” Poroshenko said, also mentioning the creation of a favorable business climate and the tax reform, antitrust laws and protection of competition.
Poroshenko was characteristically vague about the policies he would implement to attain these goals, specifying only that there was “no disagreement and no discrepancy between the president and the government, between the president and the prime minister,” on the reform issue.
In Ukraine, economic and most domestic policy is the task of the prime minister, currently Arseny Yatsenyuk, who answers to parliament, not the president. It is not clear whether Yatsenyuk will continue in the job following parliamentary elections October 26, where he is heading his own smallish party separate from Poroshenko’s Bloc Petro Poroshenko, which is dominating the polls.
Yatsenyuk also attended the meeting. “We are doing one job and implementing the same reforms. It is symbolic that we’re both here today,” Poroshenko said.
Yatsenyuk said that parliament will hold an extraordinary session on October 7 to consider creating an independent corruption-fighting agency, as demanded by the International Monetary Fund, on which Ukraine depends.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking to German businessmen October 2 said she hoped Ukraine’s government will undertake economic reforms, reduce corruption and restrict the influence of oligarchs after the October parliamentary elections, the Interfax reported.
But businesspeople attending the meeting lashed out at the president during question and answers session. Tomas Fiala, founder of brokerage Dragon Capital, accused one of the candidates of Poroshenko’s party, Oleksandr Hranovsky, as being involved in the seizure of Sky Mall, Ukraine’s largest shopping mall, from Estonia’s richest man, Hilar Teder. Dragon Capital co-invested Teder in Sky Mall and were likewise burnt.
Fiala also accused both Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk of selling parliamentary seats on their party lists for $3-4m
[featured image is file photo]