Status and trends of investment activity of domestic enterprises

Abstract

The prospects and problems of direct foreign investment as a very important factor in the development of the Ukrainian economy are determined in this paper. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is the most desirable form of investment, because it enables to implement large projects; in addition the country receives new technologies, new corporate governance practices, etc. Over the past years, according to the policy of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine conserning capital raising in various spheres of the economy, numerous negotiations with major investors regarding their affiliates opening on the state's territory are directed. As a result, such actions result in changes only in certain spheres of the economy, but do not affect the overall investment climate in the country. For global changes in this area, it is necessary to change conditions and factors influencing the investment subjects. The highest level of investment in the economy of our country was observed in 2013 and amounted 4.5 billion US dollars. Unfortunately, after the outbreak of hostilities, the amount of investments dropped sharply to 0.4 billion US dollars in 2014 and 3.07 billion in 2019. Therefore at present the government should make great efforts to increase the level of confidence of potential investors. However, the structure of past investments did not contribute to balanced development or structural modernization of economy (exports of high-tech products in 2019 amounted to 7.2% of the country’s industrial exports). Authoritative financial institutions such as the World Bank, Rating and Investment Information, Inc., McGraw-Hill, analyzing the investment environment in Ukraine, declare that the main obstacles of this area improvement are: high level of bureaucracy of processes (such as registration of new enterprises and registration of necessary documents for its activity), high level of corruption, imperfection of legislation and complexity of property interests protection of enterprises in courts. As a result, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in 2015 adopted the plan regarding the implementation of the best practices for high-quality and efficient regulation reflected by the World Bank Group in Doing Business rating methodology. Here the priority development areas, including agricultural sector, transport infrastructure, light manufacturing and IT industry are also identified. The assumptions of the ministry are confirmed by the data of the association`s research, according to which the IT sphere in Ukraine steadily grows by 11–26% each year. Regardless of the general state of economy, and the volume of this industry exports amounted $ 4.5 billion US dollars in 2019. The result of the state investment plan is also the announcement of two major airlines about their intention to invest $ 4 billion in the Ukrainian economy, which exceeds the total volume of direct investments in the previous year. The importance and necessity of the investment climate improvement are analyzed and presented and recommendations for improving the investment quality are developed in this paper. The negative influence of both economic and non-economic characters concerning the attraction of FDI to the domestic economy is defined as well.