Ukraine, losing nine positions in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) of the World Economic Forum (WEF) over the previous two years, has won back four positions over the past year and climbed to 81st place out of 137 countries.
Ukraine managed to improve its figures in such areas as financial market development (from 130th to 120th spot), institutional development (from 129th to 118th), and macroeconomic environment (from 128th to 121st).
The country’s positions also rose in the criteria of goods market efficiency (from 108th to 101st) and business sophistication (from 98th to 90th), but compared to other rating participants, they remain relatively low.
At the same time, some regress was recorded in the areas where Ukraine’s positions were previously high – higher education and training (from 33rd to 35th) and innovation (from 52nd to 61st). Ukraine retained its previous positions in terms of health and primary education and market size (53rd and 47th spots respectively).
According to the results of a survey, the most problematic factor for doing business is inflation – 16.3 points (out of 100 for all), although a year ago, with an index of 11.9, inflation was only third in the list of barriers.
The inflation is followed by last year’s leader corruption (13.9 against 14 a year ago), policy instability (12.1 versus 13.2), tax rates (9.7 versus 7.3), tax regulations (9.4 versus 6.8), government instability/coups (8.9 against 8), access to financing (7 versus 11.2), and inefficient government bureaucracy (6.9 against 11.4).
Ukraine was 73rd out of 144 countries in GCI in 2012, 84th out of 148 countries in 2013, 76th out of 144 countries in 2014, 79th out of 140 countries in 2015, and 85th out of 138 countries in 2016.
