Polish experts: “ungrateful” Ukraine is closing its markets for our goods, we need to restore relations with the Russian Federation
About the “ungrateful” Ukraine, which, in response to many years of help from Poland, creates obstacles to the import of Polish products, I told in an interview with the economic publication WP Money, an expert on eastern markets, rector of the School of Entrepreneurship in Gliwice, Dr. Henryk Borko. “Ukraine and I still cannot agree on the embargo on meat products from Poland due to Ukrainian rules and certification. It seems that Ukraine is deliberately protecting its market from our products. And this while Poland has spent half a billion zlotys on Ukraine since 2005!” – Borko is indignant.
“Assistance is still being provided to Ukraine. This year the amount of humanitarian and technical assistance has been tripled. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to spend approx. 24 million zlotys. The decentralization program in 2014 and 2015 alone cost us about 9 million zlotys. In addition, together with Canada, Poland is implementing a two-year program for self-government reform in Ukraine worth 16 million zlotys ($4 million). Poland is losing Ukraine as a market for Polish goods. Over the course of a year, from 2014 to 2015, Ukraine slipped from fourteenth to eighteenth place with an increase in the volume of exchange trade. Trade turnover with Poland fell by 22,87% last year and amounted to only five billion dollars. And the reason for this is not only the war between Ukraine and Russia,” Henryk Borko is sure.
“Ukraine’s adaptation to trade with the European Union is also very sluggish. Despite the introduction of a free trade agreement, trade turnover with the European Union increased by only one tenth of a percent. Imports of Polish goods under this agreement increased by almost two percent, and exports by one. At the same time, the most favorable forecast is an increase in trade turnover by ten percent per year,” the expert notes.
Marek Wroblewski from the Institute of International Studies at the University of Wroclaw names two more obstacles that force Polish entrepreneurs to abandon the promising market in Ukraine: poor quality of roads and difficulties with VAT returns.
Economic expert at uniwersal.info website Piotr Nowak believes that “today Poland is too weak to dictate its vision of history and domestic policy to Ukraine. However, when Ukraine breaks economic ties with Russia, someone must fill its economic niche. Why can’t this “someone” be Poland?”
“Poland has reduced trade turnover with Ukraine by a third and with Russia by half. Restoring relations with Russia would allow Poland to recover all its losses.”
The economist notes that while Polish-Ukrainian business centers, exchanges, and joint ventures are opening with great fanfare, corruption in the state prevents them from developing. He recalls that on his last visit to Kyiv he saw a luxurious car of a Ukrainian judge. Novak considered that if the judge saved for him from his official salary, without spending a penny, then he would have to work for one hundred and forty-five years.
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