Timofiy Mylovanov, 44, the minister of economic development, trade, and agriculture, believes that there is a simple recipe for Ukraine’s economic prosperity.
Speaking at the Kyiv Post Tiger Conference on Dec. 10, the minister said Ukrainians can build the country’s economic success through simple respect: for themselves, for others and for the state.
First of all, Mylovanov urged Ukrainians to believe in their own ideas and start new businesses.
“Each one of you can become rich,” Mylovanov said. “You just need to think of an idea.”
Ukraine needs new businesses to appear and, for that to happen, the country needs ideas.
And while, in Mylovanov’s view, Ukrainians have a lot of talent, they are too self-distrustful to use it properly.
“We don’t know how to monetize it,” he said. “It’s like losing a race before it starts.”
As an example of using talent properly, the minister presented the case of two companies in Kharkiv that share the same building for their offices. One is Kommunar, an outdated Soviet aerospace giant. The other is a small company that makes simple electric chargers. Both of them have comparable revenues, despite the fact that Kommunar employed 2,500 people.
“Today Kommunar is making $10 million,” said Mylovanov. Meanwhile, the small e-charging company has nearly the same income because of its creativity and innovative approaches.
“I looked at the software they are using and it’s made in Ukraine,” Mylovanov said. “We have the potential for growth.”
Believing in government
Ukraine’s inflation rate stands at 5% today, while a couple of years ago it was 46%.
For Mylovanov, this is a vivid example of how big of a leap Ukraine has made over the last years.
“No one thought it would be possible,” he said.
But despite such achievements, people still don’t trust the government. According to Gallup, a U.S. pollster, prior to the 2019 parliamentary elections, only 9% of Ukrainians trusted the government. In fact, that number never exceeded 14% in 2015–2019.
“People don’t feel respected. Even those who don’t pay taxes — they feel the state doesn’t respect them,” he said. “It’s a cultural problem. We are trying to fix it.”
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Timofiy Mylovanov gives a keynote speech at the Kyiv Post Tiger Conference 2019 at Kyiv’s innovation park Unit.City on Dec. 10, 2019. Mylovanov believes that in order for Ukraine to achieve economic prosperity, it needs to change its mindset and start using the talent Ukrainians have. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Respecting intellectual property
Speaking of respect, Mylovanov mentioned that while the government needs to respect its citizens and improve their lives, Ukrainians must start with themselves by beginning to respect the intellectual property rights of others.
“We watch pirated movies, we listen to the pirated music, and we think it’s the norm,” Mylovanov said. “Even the government has pirated software, downloaded from Russian websites.”
According to Muso, an anti-piracy monitoring agency, Ukraine is among the top 10 largest consumers of illegal online content. In 2018, the websites distributing pirated movies had 190 billion clicks with over 6 billion coming from Ukraine.
The minister thinks Ukrainians should change this mentality.
“Culturally we need to get serious in enforcing (respect of the work of others),” he said. “An idea has the same right to be defended as a house or a piece of land.”
Fixing the respect part, according to the minister, can improve Ukraine’s economic situation.
Ukraine is a post-Soviet country fighting for its democracy. It needs a strong economy in order to succeed.
“We fought Russia with nothing (in 2014), we built an army from scratch,” Mylovanov said. “The only little thing left is to start believing in ourselves.”
