Moreover, for implementation the strategy he even made a separate government body with high-sounding title – State Agency for Investments and National Projects, headed by the notorious Vladyslav Kaskiv.
For more than a year the agency has spent several billion hryvnias, but the single result of its work was a chain of corruption scandals and no real investment. Hundreds of millions allegedly spent on investment promotion abroad and even Yanukovych’s personal invitation for investors in Davos to look at naked Ukrainian women were unable to improve the situation.
There is plenty to talk about the difficult legacy of Yanukovych, inherited from previous governments, but to maintain objectivity, several points should be mentioned. First, the vast majority of previous Ukrainian governments are governments of Yanukovych himself or members of his team. Even during the period of so-called "Orange thaw," his Party of Regions was in power from September 2005 to December 2007.
Second, the performance of the current government was critically evaluated not only by local experts, but also their foreign counterparts. Over the last two years Ukraine has significantly lost its positions in the main international economic rankings. Furthermore, for the first time in the history, Ukraine ranks as one of the five world`s worst economies, according to Forbes ranking.
The situation is catastrophic and leaders of the ruling party hardly can’t see it. The lack of any reaction on the actual failure of the investment policy doesn`t leave any doubts about their true intentions. They deliberately chose a maximum isolation. Not only diplomatic, but also economic. Naturally it doesn`t mean the embargo or the physical closure of state borders.
No, just a creation in Ukraine such environment in which no civilized business can even hypothetically appear. Therefore, monopoly, existing today in politics and economy, will be unconditionally continued.
This means that corrupt Ukrainian officials will continue to pump out natural resources and to steal the major part of state budget every year, without even the slight threat that any Shell or Exxon Mobil, protecting its interests, will have to support the opposition. Possibly, in the distant 1641 shogun Tokugawa was also guided by a similar logic when he decided to close Japan from the outside world.
However, the result of this isolation was complete suspension of any development. When in 1853 "black ships" of Commodore Perry came to the coast of Kanagawa, it was underdeveloped medieval country not able to resist or compete. Realizing the fallacy of previous policy, Japan launched an aggressive industrialization in order to achieve the level of leading countries.
Forty years later they showed themselves as a growing world power by winning both the Sino-Japanese war, and Russo-Japanese war. The victory against Russia was the more shocking, as it was the first time since the Mongol invasion of Europe that an Asian nation had obtained a major victory against a European power. Japanese proved that never too late to start.
Thus, Ukraine also has its historical chance. I want to believe that foreign military forces are not its essential attribute.
Oleksandr Danylyuk is the executive head of the All-Ukrainian Centre of Business Assistance.
