Provocative subject, bright panelists and perceptive audience are the key components of the debates held by the Foundation for Effective Governance.

The successful examples of SEZs in China, the UAE, Japan and other countries show that the development strategy for special economic zones should strictly specify the distinctive position of each zone in a relevant economic sector and identify mechanisms of attracting the leading international companies in the field and wide-scale investments into SEZs infrastructure.

I vouch entirely for this economic mechanism in our country. SEZs should be restored under the existing law, and every region, particularly depressing, should be able to come forward with their own investment projects. The State should review these proposals and allow their implementation on a preferential basis. SEZs will help Ukraine combat the economic crisis and modernize infrastructure.

This instrument may prompt honest or dishonest competitiveness depending on its role in the country’s economic development. The Ministry of Economy has analyzed the common reasons why the participants of investment projects had failed to serve their obligations in SEZs. I’d like to emphasize the word “common”, i.e. those that we’ve had multiple cases of. Among these reasons are overstated figures of VAT refunds, violation of customs regulations and vehicle registration, overdue payments in hard currency, misuse of import tax privileges, and customs-free export to the domestic market.

The system of education, from primary to higher, is one of the key prerequisites to competitiveness in any country. According to the Ukraine Competitiveness Report 2009, implemented by the FEG in tandem with the World Economic Forum, Ukrainian higher education and training is placed on the 43rd position among 134 countries. This is the highest performance among the CIS member states. It is a well-known fact that Ukrainian IT specialists, physicists and mathematicians are internationally competitive and appreciated worldwide.

Speaking about competitiveness of our Ukrainian higher education graduates, we should ask the follow-up question: do we mean at the Ukrainian market or the Western market? I mean the labor market. I am an employer myself. I’ve been in business for a long time. I have more than 22 years of working experience, mostly in international companies. I lecture in universities, including American.

I’d like to say what should be done so that not only our future graduates, but also people who, like me, graduated from colleges 20-30 years ago, develop necessary professional skills. I don’t want to say anything against university administrators who are present here, I may be wrong in some cases, but on general I believe that I am right: it’s obvious to universities that our academics don’t have effective communication skills either, so it’s no surprise that they can’t teach these skills to their students. Teachers can’t use the Internet and have routine email correspondence if they don’t know English sufficiently well. Consequently, they can’t demand from their students to be fluent in English either.

Historical production ties, similar technologies, common markets and joint scientific potential have made Russia our long-term strategic partner. However, global economic transformations create numerous opportunities of successful cooperation with the Old World and new, rapidly growing economies.

Perhaps it’s time to admit that today, in 2010, Russia and Ukraine can hardly boast of strong economies. By no means are they locomotives to pull each other out of the economic crisis. Hence we have to look somewhere else and try to use someone else’s resources for the benefit of both Ukraine and Russia.

It is very important to drop ideological dogmas. To a great extent we are victims of TV and other media which tell us: “You know, Russia will gobble you up!” – and we are frightened. Or: “Let’s move to Europe, become Europeans” – and we are driven by a desire to live in Europe, where everything is nice and comfortable. Yet I’d suggest that we leave this staff overboard of our investment ship. I want to present five arguments – pragmatic and economic – why we can come out of this economic crisis only with Russia. I’d like to emphasize that speaking of economy, we should see things only through the prism of economy and pragmatism.

Децентрализация - один из способов гармонизации отношений между центром и регионами.

Если у вас не развивается конкурентная экономика, если не развивается местное самоуправление, то постепенно все приходит к усилению не только экономической централизации, но и уничтожению политической конкуренции, и Россия яркий тому пример.Всё в стадии транзитного развития. Плюс эта турбулентность накладывается на турбулентность мировую, потому что весь мир вступает в длинную эпоху нестабильности.

Сегодня глядя на Украину, меня в первую очередь поражает разрыв между регионами, а украинские регионы торгуют больше с внешним миром, чем между собой.

There are three major reasons why I think the crisis is not a good time to gauge a long-term economic reform: too much politics, too few resources and the danger of learning the wrong lessons from the crisis.

Я уверена, что кризис является катализатором реформ и качественных изменений во многих отраслях.

Если реформы ради реформ, ради сохранения существующей коррупционной государственной машины, то мы категорически против таких реформ. Если же реформы во имя пирамиды, где стоят люди, тогда мы за такие реформы.

Украинским парламентом в очередной раз продлен мораторий на продажу сельхозземель, теперь до 2010 года. Аргументов как за, так и против предостаточно, но оппоненты очень часто попросту не слышат друг друга. Обсудить вопрос конструктивно и цивилизованно были призваны первые в восточной Европе публичные дебаты, организованные Фондом Рената Ахметова «Эффективное управление» совместно с британской компанией Intelligence Squared.

Что такое мораторий. Ну например, как нам мораторий на вклады? Ну как вам? А? Болит всем, правда? Как-то нет людей, которых это не цепляет, правда? Мораторий означает временное ограничение кого-то или чего-то. Мораторий на девять лет на землю, здесь мало крестьян, наверно. Ну, собрать их, наверно, будет другой эффект, как им. Это о шести миллионах людей, которые владеют землей...

Скупку земель, которой нас пугают, на самом деле предотвратить очень просто. Если кто-то где-то хочет купить более 35 процентов чего-то в нашей стране, он должен получать на это разрешение на экономическую концентрацию от Антимонопольного комитета.