Kyiv’s central Premier Palace hotel rang with promises of lower taxes and fairer regulations on March 4, as representatives of five of the current top six presidential candidates set out their bosses’ economic programs at a packed gathering of businesspersons.
The forum “For a Responsible Dialog Between Business and Politicians,” was organized by Ukraine’s Business Coalition, an advocacy group comprising of the Ukrainian Business Council and the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs. The event’s was designed to acquaint the business community with the economic agendas of the presidential candidates ahead of the presidential elections on March 31.
The only candidate to attend in person was former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko, while former Prime-Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, Radical Party’s leader Oleh Lyashko and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who is currently leading in all polls – sent official representatives.
‘Everything is fine’
Nina Yuzhanina, a Ukrainian lawmaker and head of parliament’s tax committee, spoke on behalf of Poroshenko. She began by apologizing for the present’s absence, saying his team “forgot to inform him” of the meeting with the business community.
Yuzhanina emphasized the progress made during the previous five years, citing as Poroshenko’s main achievement the decrease of the single social payment from nearly 50 percent to 22 percent in 2016. The tax cut was achieved under the leadership former Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko who served until April 2016. Yuzhanina was a major critic of Jaresko’s tax policies at the time. Yuzhanina also said Poroshenko’s administration aimed to cut taxes even more in future. However, the notion of Ukraine having lower taxes isn’t supported by Ukraine’s Western creditors, she said.
Yuzhanina ran into some criticism after a question from Oleksandr Sokolovsky, the owner of Textile Contact and a board member of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, who cited unwarranted attacks by state agencies as an obstacle to doing business in Ukraine. Yuzhanina stated that in the last couple of years there have been no attacks on business – a remark that caused consternation among those attending.
In fact, lawyers estimate that some 3,000 to 7,000 raider attacks on businesses occur every year across Ukraine.
Tymoshenko’s criticism
Economist Vitaliy Lomakovych spoke on behalf of Tymoshenko. He criticized the economic policies of the current administration, but failed to present clear alternatives.
Lomakovych mainly criticized the policies of the National Bank of Ukraine, which according to the speaker, instead of stimulating the country’s business sector by lowering interest rates, is overregulating the market.
Officially, Ukraine’s central bank is a body functioning independently from the government.
Lomakovych stated that, if elected, Tymoshenko would decrease the number of inspections by liquidating a number of enforcement bodies.
During his presentation, Lomakovych pointed out that there is no need to further lower taxes, yet after answering questions from the audience concerning a new tax code, he stated that Tymoshenko’s team would in fact lower taxes.
Grytsenko’s position
The next two hours were devoted to Grytsenko. He was also supported by Andriy Sadovyi, who on March 1 withdrew his candidacy in favor of Grytsenko.
Both Sadovyi and Grytsenko supported stimulating local aviation and railway transportation through government regulation. The political allies also criticized the ongoing raider attacks on businesses and proposed to liquidate the tax police and ban Ukraine’s security services from monitoring business activity.
Another key promise by Grytsenko was to decrease bureaucracy by transferring all documentation from paper to online registries and by banning state authorities from requesting documents already in the possession of government agencies.
Economist Oleksandr Savchenko, who will become head of Ukraine’s National Bank if Grytsenko wins the presidency, took to the stage and stated that the central bank would lower interest rates and promote affordable loans for small and medium businesses.
Zelenskiy’s agenda
Closer to the end of the forum, when most of the audience had already left, Oleksandr Danylyuk, Ukraine’s former finance minister, took to the stage. Danylyuk was fired from his Finance Ministry post by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman after he accused the government of corruption.
At the event, Danylyuk took the stage as the official representative of comedian Zelenskiy, who declared his intention to run in the upcoming elections and who’s economic program is largely a mystery to the public.
Danylyuk did not prepare any presentation, but rather spoke about the top 10 business priorities which were discussed previously at the event. He reassured the public that all of these concerns would be taken care of if Zelenskiy becomes president.
These priorities include: replacing the income tax with a tax on withdrawn capital, liquidating the tax police, forbidding the SBU to investigate economic crimes, while instead creating a single government agency under the Finance Ministry’s authority that will take on those responsibilities.
Danylyuk promised lower taxes to bring Ukraine’s salaries out from under the table, as well as new tax and labor codes.
“We can’t live in the 21st century under a labor code that was adopted in the 1970’s,” said Danylyuk.
Danylyuk placed an emphases on battling corruption and de-monopolization, stating that Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas monopolist, must be de-bundled.
However, he didn’t clarify whether these companies would remain state-owned.
