Ukraine: it is somewhere between Togo and Liberia

Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal publishes 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. Ukraine occupies proud last place out of all European countries and 162 out of 179 evaluated countries, finding itself just between Togo and Liberia. Ukraine gets high scores for Fiscal, Monetary and Trade Freedom, but is ranked quite low in Business, Investment, Financial freedoms. Also Ukraine gets low scores on Property rights protection and Freedom from Corruption. Source

Apparently biggest opportunity for Ukraine lies in improving its business climate, property rights protection and fighting corruption. These tasks are no surprise and have been apparent for years, however, they have never been popular with Ukraine's political elite.

Consessions may be simplified in Ukraine

Ukrainian parliament supported amendments to the law on Concessions (#4674), which will make concessions more operable in Ukraine. As of now it is much simpler to work on contracts of rent. Few consession projects that have been started so far did not succeed. Public-private partnership projects in the country are stalled by inefficient consession law. The new law if adopted will make consessions more attractive to investors. However, it is unlikely that consessions will start working in Ukraine any time soon, at least not for a couple of years. It is likely that the parliament will get re-elected in Autumn 2010 and the law on consessions will have to be considered by the new parliament, which will bring significant delay in making that mechanism work.