Ukraine has improved its position on three pillars. Still, it is down 10 places in the global ranking from last year.

Ukraine ranks 82nd out of 133 countries in Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010. According to the final Ukraine’s Competitiveness Report presented yesterday by the Foundation for Effective Governance within the framework of joint project with the World Economic Forum (WEF) Ukraine is down 10 places from last year.

This time Ukraine has found itself among developing countries in Africa and Latin America, next to Gambia and Algeria.
Ukraine saw the most noticeable decline in three pillars: macroeconomic stability (a 15 point drop, 106th place), financial market sophistication (a 21 point drop, 106th place) and innovation (a 15 point drop, 80th place). However, the lowest ranking was on the institutions pillar (120th place).

Still, Ukraine improved its position on three pillars. The report showed that the country was ranked 49th on labour market efficiency (5 places up), 29th on market size (2 places up) and 78th on infrastructure (1 place up).

In fact, specialists state that Ukraine has failed to improve its competitiveness over the past years. “Ukraine is losing, - noted the Chairman of the World Economic Forum Thierry Geiger –“So there is big concern if it is going to be competitive in the future and whether it will be able to compete with the developing countries”.

Still, Ukraine is not the only country, which has faced the situation. For example, Russia is down by 13 places and ranks 64. “Ukraine as well as some other developing economies appeared to be unable to mitigate effects of the global financial crisis. Along with Ukraine, the following countries lost ten and more positions: Botswana, Ghana, Latvia, Mali, Mongolia, Russia, Syria, the Philippines and Croatia," said the Managing Director of the Foundation Nataliya Izosimova.

Kiev topped the national rankings out of 20 regions as in the past years. In the global ranking the city was ranked 59th, next to Hungary and Panama. Kiev was closely followed by Dnepropetrovsk region and two pairs of regions: Zakarpatye and Lvov regions (ranked 67th and 69th in the Global Competitiveness Report, next to Uruguay and Romania); Crimea and Donetsk region (ranked 72nd and 73rd, between Kazakhstan and Latvia). Kharkov region rounded out the top five leaders, being ranked 76th in the Global Competitiveness Report between Columbia and Egypt.

Poltava, Cherkassy, Khmelnitskiy, Zaporozh’ye, Odessa, Lugansk and Kherson regions were in the middle of the rankings. Volyn, Rovno, Ivano-Frankovsk, Sumy and Zhitomir showed lower competitiveness. Vinnitsa region is the last in the regional rankings. It was ranked 111th, next to Senegal and Serbia.

Still, specialists of the Foundation note that the residents of any region shouldn’t be very happy or upset about the results. "Despite all distinctions of Ukrainian regions, they have quite similar strengths and weaknesses. Firstly, it is about such competitiveness pillars as health and primary education, institutions, and business sophistication. We see a relatively big spread of values in such pillars as infrastructure and labour market efficiency," said the Foundation's Managing Director Nataliya Izosimova.

“Those win who are best ready for the victory”, noted Mayor of Lviv City Andriy Sadovy who was present at the presentation. “We have entered the era of global competition. So, each of us should realize our strengths and weaknesses”. According to Sadovy, after having analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of Lviv City the administration decided to develop two clusters: tourism and business services. The City Council used to have just one person responsible for tourism. “For some reason everyone ignored this area. Did they believe that tourists and investors could come in and the tourism market would develop without any incentives?” he asked a rhetorical question.

To avoid this question to be addressed to the whole country Thierry Geiger recommends Ukraine start preparing for the victory. “The world can’t avoid a new crisis in the future. Problems will arise”, he warns. Still, the expert believes that it will be easier for developed countries to overcome the crisis. “Asia is developing fast. Asian countries are getting to the level of the countries of the Old World”, he states. He recommends Ukraine pay attention to the Asian countries as it will have to compete with them.

According to Thierry, under the current circumstances reform is our last hope. “Reforms have been put off for a long time”, he added. “But we hope that the reforms will be introduced and a positive institutional climate will be created”.

Reference form the Day Newspaper

The project for studying competitiveness of Ukraine and Ukrainian regions is implemented by the Foundation for Effective Governance in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF) according to its methodology that forms the basis for the WEF annual Global Competitiveness Report. The WEF has been analyzing Ukraine’s competitiveness since 1997. However, for the third consecutive year Ukraine gets the competitiveness ranking of separate regions along with its global ranking. In 2008, the project covered twelve Ukraine regions, in 2009 – 15 regions, and this year the project embraces 19 regions (plus Kiev City). According to Nataliya Izosimova next year the ranking will cover all the Ukrainian regions.