UKRAINE: PRIVATIZATION WITHOUT PROGRESS?

According to the Ministry of Statistics, more than 6,600 non-state industrial enterprises were operating in Ukraine during the first quarter of 1997. These firms constituted 71.5 percent of the country’s total number of industrial enterprises, and accounted for 52.4 percent of industrial production. These figures represent an increase over the 5,400 non-state industrial firms, which accounted for 60.4 percent of total industrial enterprises and 48.4 percent of industrial output, reported at the end of the first quarter of 1996. (Interfax Ukraina, May 10)

The Ministry of Statistics announcement came after President Leonid Kuchma’s signing of Ukraine’s 1997 privatization program, which calls for 50 percent of the net revenues earned from privatization to be retained by the privatizing firms themselves. (Interfax Ukraina, May 8) This reflects a shift from the exclusively fiscal orientation of privatization in past years, whereby all net privatization revenues were claimed by the state treasury. Although some 5,230 state enterprises are slated for privatization in 1997, this would represent a substantial decrease over the approximately 17,000 firms that were officially privatized during the first nine months of 1996. (TACIS Ukrainian Economic Trends, October 1996)

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