Ukraine is losing its last investment advantage
Ukraine has lost the advantage of low labor costs that used to attract investors. Labor is already starting to become more expensive, but still remains unproductive.
Oleg Ustenko, executive director of the International Blazer Foundation, stated this on Radio NV, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“When investors now consider the Ukrainian economy as a place for their investment, they do not consider this temporary advantage that we have in terms of wages as a competitive advantage. It will go away very quickly.
If we think about the development of the labor market and the growth of wages, then soon they will rise to the average European level. Objectively. Because we need to retain at least some staff.
On the other hand, this is a colossal challenge for entrepreneurs as owners: if you want to retain staff and raise wages, then you must correspondingly raise labor productivity.
To do this, you need to invest additionally, and in order to invest you need to have guarantees that what you invested will remain at that enterprise and will not be eaten up by the bureaucratic machine and corruption channels.
And that someone won’t take away this business that you opened, cared for and cherished,” Ustenko concluded.
Let us remind you that in the Ukrainian media Ustenko is called one of President Zelensky’s likely candidates for the post of prime minister. He is known for the fact that in past years, as an economist, he actively lobbied for Ukraine’s cooperation with the IMF.
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