Last week’s Invest Ukraine conference was hailed as a strategic breakthrough by its organizers, a government agency, in terms of the country’s approach to foreign investors.
The showpiece project, a One-Stop Shop (see story on page 6) to speed up and simplify investment procedures, has the potential to bring in badly needed capital.
But any positive efforts will be sabotaged by the pernicious practice of fudging the numbers, a common practice of Ukrainian governments. During presentations and in prepared materials, the organizers repeatedly backed their arguments with misleading or simply untrue figures and facts.
In one instance, to convince investors about Ukrainian’s low wages, Invest Ukraine took year-old data and converted it at an astounding exchange rate of 9.33, rather than the official 8 hryvnias per U.S. dollar. And — presto! — average dollar-denominated wages dropped by 30 percent.
It is inconceivable that such a strategy would work. Any investor who found the numbers appealing would immediately want to learn more, only to discover that the agency gave incorrect data.
Of the two possible explanations, carelessness or deceit, both are unflattering. Sadly, this attitude is all too common in a country where many continue to play fast and loose with the truth.
It starts from the top, with a president who has dabbled in plagiarism, and goes all the way to the bottom, where many see tax fraud as a worthy skill worth perfecting.
Meanwhile, government agencies that are meant to provide the information upon which to base economic decisions engage in propaganda. The latest example is this year’s record harvest, which continues into the winter period to grow by a million tons almost every week.
Investors interested in Ukraine know that the nation is still a poor economy in transition, but also one that holds great promise if it fixes basic problems. Distorting reality discredits the idea that it is interested in solving them.
