Ukraine makes strides towards economic freedom – Frazer Institute’s report

Ukraine is no longer among the most economically unfree countries. This follows from the updated report "Economic freedom in the world" of the Fraser Institute, whose national partner in Ukraine is the Bendukidze Center.

Frazer Institute published that in its report, which can be found at the link.

The report annually measures the level of support for economic freedom by the institutions and policies of countries in five areas:

• size of government,
• the rule of law and protection of property rights,
• reliability of money,
• freedom of international trade,
• regulation of the labor market and business.

Ukraine took 112th place among 165 jurisdictions in the updated rating and rose to the third quartile. The researchers note the most significant improvement in the area of government size, namely transfers, subsidies, and state ownership of assets. In addition, there is an improvement in the performance of the legal system due to the ongoing judicial reform, as well as a positive change, albeit small, in regulation, in particular the regulation of credit markets (rate controls), the regulation of business activities (red tape costs) and the freedom of competition. At the same time, the reliability of money and the freedom of international trade decreased somewhat under the influence of inflation.

Also, this year, Hong Kong lost first place in the ranking for the first time due to the Chinese government's restrictions on the rule of law and the loss of trust in the independence and impartiality of judges. Instead, Singapore's performance improved, allowing the country to be at the top. Switzerland, New Zealand, the United States, Ireland, Denmark, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada also received the highest scores.

Overall, the change in the global index shows that the past few years have been challenging. The global average economic freedom indicator has decreased, primarily associated with the coronavirus pandemic. This is a more severe decline than the one observed during the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

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It should be noted that the government of Ukraine approved the draft budget for 2024 with its own revenues of the general fund of the budget in the amount of 1 trillion 560 billion hryvnias and expenditures of the general fund in the amount of 3 trillion 108 billion hryvnias.

It was also reported that the Cabinet of Ministers [Ukraine's government -ed.] proposes to direct personal taxes from military payments to unmanned aerial vehicles and weapons production.