Ukrainian miracle being readied
First long-term development strategy developed
The Ukrainian Forum, a civic political organization, recently presented its national development strategy for the period until 2015. By this date, as the prominent Ukrainian scholars, economists, and politicians who belong to the organization claim, Ukraine will have completed its own “economic miracle.”
The creators of this document are satisfied with their work. Even the very fact that such a document exists is a matter of pride. “The ridiculousness of this situation is that in the 17th year of its independence Ukraine still does not have a complete program of national development adopted at the state level. To my mind, this is the worst drawback of all the other problems our country has today,” said Volodymyr Semynozhenko, the head of the Ukrainian Forum. He emphasized that the national development priorities are defined in the mid-term perspective and thus are connected neither to the current complement of the parliament or government, nor to the cycle of elections. Semynozhenko is convinced that the new document may unite the political forces in Ukraine and put an end to one government’s activities being opposed to another’s. The authors of the national strategy claim that their program is able to satisfy any government formed by any political forces, and thus to unite them around a common goal.
“I am happy such a document has appeared,” said Oleh Bilorus, an MP from the BYuT. “But I am afraid that by the time the strategy is adopted, its term will pass, and we will have to develop another one. That’s why my advice is not to stop but to continue developing it.”
The economic part of the strategy envisages Ukraine reaching the 1980s level of production by 2015 but with a market economy structure. At the same time, it will have to have “medium-income country” standards of living. To achieve these goals, the state has to support the scientific and technological potential in those areas that are able to provide the country’s competitive advantages and national security, and also to create the most favorable conditions for the country’s participation both in the development of the global economy and in the processes of European integration. However, the key task outlined by the authors is the transition from the raw-material-export type of economic development to the investment-innovative one. The Ukraine- 2015 program sets the ambitious goal of quickly catching up with the advanced countries’ level of development. Modernizing all areas of social life is to be instrumental in achieving this goal, and uniting the reformative efforts of the civil society, state power, and business is the prerequisite for success.
Andrii Yermolaiev, the director of the Center for Social Research, agrees with the main theses of the document but asks ironically, “Who will implement that? Who will take this strategy not just as a text but as a basis for formulating priorities to be implemented?”
Bilorus said that for the strategy to be accepted and implemented, it is necessary to introduce it directly not only to the state authorities and administrative functionaries, but also to the society as a whole. Therefore, the Ukrainian Forum members are distributing their version of the development strategy among all the branches of power. Every parliamentarian, every government official, and every regional council will receive their copies for further discussion.
Disagreeing with the doubts that have been expressed about the implementation of the strategy, Bilorus came up with several examples of strategies and “economic miracles” in other countries. “The national development strategy in the US is developed for a 50-year period, and it is redesigned annually, and financed. China has accomplished such a tremendous breakthrough! Japan, which was defeated in the war, has done it. France and Germany, both devastated by the war, have done it...Finland, a God-forsaken corner of the Russian Empire, where tuberculosis once flourished, is one of the major world players today.”
Bilorus is convinced that Ukraine is capable of doing the same. However, his optimism is tempered with some pessimism. Ukraine may have to accomplish the above-mentioned goals in much more complicated conditions. “Stock exchanges are crashing. Ukraine has already felt a bit of the first shock. So it’s quite possible that we will have to implement the strategy in a crisis situation,” he summarized.
Despite all possible complications, the authors of the strategy hope that their work, which took them more than a year to complete, will not go unnoticed and will be implemented, at least partially.
