Foreign Investments

Fair Play. About big economy and how to make your business honest and protected

The editorial board of the newspaper “Panorama” has two good news items for readers interested in economic topics. The first – our projects, which in 2012 were published as separate supplements – “Big Economy” and “Agro,” despite the sharp economic downturn in Ukraine, will continue in 2013, although in a somewhat different format. Considering that “Panorama,” due to the increase in circulation (mainly due to subscriptions across Sumy region), is now read by practically the entire interested audience, there is no point in printing a separate supplement and additionally distributing it. So both “BE” and “Agro” will now be published inside the newspaper as one project.

The second good news also concerns economic topics – together with our partners and great friends from JV “Tekhnologia,” we are starting a new project tentatively titled “How and why foreign investments can save Ukraine’s economy.” The project is designed for all of 2013.

However, the question arises: why this topic and why now?

Among domestic economists (far from all, of course!) there has long been an opinion that foreign investments are practically the only chance for Ukraine for economic salvation and, paradoxically, political independence.

To be convinced of this, we need to make a brief excursion into the history of the issue and, discarding everything unnecessary, look at what this mysterious process called “foreign investments” brings to the country and people living in it.

And very soon it will become clear that besides the money the investor puts into the enterprise, new jobs, products that are sold, as a rule, not only in the domestic market, payment of all taxes (the investor works only within the legal framework!), no less important values are brought to the country: new technologies, educational standards, production culture. As a result, people’s attitude not only to their work, to their profession changes, but also their attitude to the place where they live, to life itself.

An employee of an enterprise with foreign investments differs from an employee of a domestic enterprise in many parameters – primarily in worldview attitudes. The former have a pronounced desire for learning, improving their professional skills, for the results of their work. This is a new psychological phenomenon that has not yet been seriously studied by specialists.

Enterprises with foreign investments that play fair, conduct honest business, have honest partner relations with both the state and their own employees – today these are bright spots against the background of constant problems of most enterprises under domestic management, many of which are entangled in “gray” tax payment schemes, wages in “envelopes,” and labor relations with employees. In addition, which is especially relevant this year – foreign investments are the most reliable protection against encroachments from both the state and raiders.

However, attracting an investor is not easy, and to Ukraine – doubly not easy.

But apparently, our economy has no other choice. A series of articles about what foreign investments are and why they are so necessary for Ukraine should provide the target readership with the full spectrum of problems and their solutions, the full power of advantages of this development path. We want to show the positive experience and mechanisms for implementing successful investment projects in Ukraine and attract entrepreneurs’ attention to a potentially interesting way of developing their business.

Yevhen Polozhiy