Premier Valery Pustovoitenko offered a fresh view on the problem of the shadow economy. Addressing the Kyiv Market Reform Press Club on coming presidential edicts, he stated that, when he asked an entrepreneur what further steps were needed for business to come out of the shadows, the businessman remained silent. From this the Premier concluded that the shadows suits business just fine. All that remains is to call a round table of public servants and shadow market operators to settle in one stroke the problem of legalizing the shadow economy, which accounts for an estimated half of Ukraine’s GDP, costing the state, according to the Prime Minister, two billion hryvnias in the first half of 1998. Of course, the shadow economy is only society’s reaction to the state’s excessive tax pressure.






