The Ukrainian Entrepreneurs’ Association has published an analytical note entitled ‘Improving the business climate, digitalisation and deregulation in Ukraine’, authored by Volodymyr Dubrovskyi, senior economist at CASE Ukraine, and Oleg Getman, associate expert at CASE Ukraine.
The note focuses on the state of Ukrainian business during the war and on measures that could reduce administrative burdens, strengthen trust in the state and create the conditions for economic recovery.
Ukrainian business has not come to a standstill, but is largely operating in a mode of cautious consolidation. Its development is hampered by weak and unstable demand, labour shortages, expensive and hard-to-access financial resources, logistical problems, shadow competition and regulatory uncertainty. A significant proportion of businesses are forced to focus not on scaling up, but on maintaining their day-to-day operations.
Entrepreneurs cite the blocking of tax invoices, delays at the border, inspections, abuse of regulatory provisions, demands for overpayments and the complexity of licensing procedures as some of the most pressing problems. All of this increases business costs, reduces predictability and forces entrepreneurs to spend resources on bureaucracy rather than on investment.
At the same time, Ukraine has its strengths: high human capital, a developed IT sector, progress in the digitalisation of public services, cyber resilience and an innovative ecosystem. It is precisely digitalisation, procedural transparency and deregulation that could become some of the key tools for post-war economic recovery.
Estonia, Georgia, Canada, Poland, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark and South Korea demonstrate that reducing bureaucracy, digital services, risk-based audits and a service-oriented tax model can make it easier for businesses to operate and reduce the risks of corruption.
Among the authors’ key proposals are the introduction of a ‘regulatory diet’, whereby every new regulation must be accompanied by the repeal or simplification of an existing one; a comprehensive review of permits and licences; the extension of the principle of ‘tacit consent’; the creation of a single digital portal for authorisation procedures; reform of the inspection system; a shift from a tax-based to a service-based model; limiting the period for which tax invoices are blocked; and greater digitalisation of registers and the entrepreneur’s online portal.
A separate set of proposals concerns institutional changes: effective KPIs for the State Tax Service, the State Migration Service and the State Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission; mandatory regulatory impact assessments for draft legislation; strengthening the role of the State Regulatory Service; and regular dialogue between the state and business.
The main conclusion of the analytical note is that improving the business climate requires not piecemeal solutions, but a systemic change to the rules. Less bureaucracy, transparent procedures, digital services and accountability on the part of state bodies can reduce costs for entrepreneurs, limit scope for abuse and enable businesses to move from mere survival to growth.