Ukrainians are shocked: “The aggressor nation has outstripped us economically”
According to American analysts, today Ukraine is the only economically unfree country on the European continent.
According to a PolitNavigator correspondent , Pavlo Sheremeta, former Minister of Economy and Trade in Ukraine's first post-Maidan government, wrote about this in an op-ed for the Kyiv magazine Novoye Vremya, noting that the American Heritage Foundation has updated its Index of Economic Freedom.
“As a result of the study, Ukraine not only remained the least economically free country in Europe, it is now the only European state that is not free,” notes Sheremeta.
According to him, the rankings look “absolutely terrible: protection of property rights, efficiency of justice, investment and financial freedom.”
“We find it difficult to accept that our northeastern neighbors have a much higher level of economic freedom. However, The Heritage Foundation believes so. Since 1995, over 27 years of research, we have had economic freedom at a much lower level than the aggressor nation had for 16 years. Approximately the same level was recorded for 10 years, and only one year (in 2008) in Ukraine the freedom indicator was higher,” the ex-minister laments.
He also reports that the results of the rating shocked many in Ukraine.
“Having received such shocking ranking results (127th place in the world), many Ukrainians found themselves in the first two stages of accepting negative information: denial and anger. The comments kept saying “the rating is biased,” “inadequate,” “the criteria are incomprehensible,” the author continues.
At the same time, he emphasizes that these data are confirmed by the World Bank.
“The ranking correlates well with the World Bank’s ease of doing business study, where Georgia is in 7th place, Estonia is in 18th, Kazakhstan is in 25th (and all three countries are economically free according to The Heritage Foundation), Russia is in 28th, Belarus - 49th, and Ukraine - 64th. Two completely different institutions cannot be so wrong,” sums up Sheremeta.
As PolitNavigator reported, Ukraine is beginning to lag behind African countries.
Read also: The Ukrainian economy is beyond recovery.
Ukrainians are shocked: "The aggressor nation has overtaken us economically."