2016 in review
Analysis published during 2016.
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St Nicholas Day 2016
The nineteenth of December, and the volunteers who make sure the custom reaches children who would otherwise miss it.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Holodomor Remembrance Day 2016
A candle in the window on the fourth Saturday of November.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukrainian Language Day, 9 November 2016
A greeting for the day, and a note on the words a language keeps that others have no room for.
National Days & Anniversaries -
How to read a country report without being misled by it
Doing Business rankings, competitiveness indices, risk ratings and bank research all describe the same country and disagree substantially. Understanding what each one measures explains why, and makes them…
Trade & Investment -
Growing the market rather than dividing it: when competitors are worth more than they cost
In an underdeveloped category the constraint is not competitors taking your share, it is that almost nobody is buying the product at all. Firms that recognise which situation…
Trade & Investment -
Ukraine Market Report — Q3 2016
A strong harvest, a recovery consolidating, and the first Ukrainian food producers receiving EU establishment approvals — the point at which the trade agreement started producing measurable results.
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
The end of subsidised gas, and what replaced it
For years households paid a fraction of what gas cost. Ending that was the most painful economic reform of the period and the most necessary.
Economy & Macro -
ProZorro: what open procurement actually changes for a foreign supplier
From August, every public tender in Ukraine runs on one open electronic platform. The savings get the headlines; the more important effect is that the state's purchasing has…
Politics & Governance -
Knowledge Day 2016
The first of September, and a note on the external testing that changed who gets into university.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Independence Day 2016: a quarter of a century, and a new trade map
Twenty-five years. The free trade area with the EU took effect in January, russia closed its own preferential regime in response, and Ukrainian trade flows rearranged themselves faster…
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q2 2016
A new government in April, electronic procurement becoming mandatory, and a recovery underway that was structurally different from the one that preceded the crisis.
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
Ivana Kupala, 7 July 2016
A summer night that belongs to the young, and to water.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Constitution Day, 28 June 2016
A short note on the anniversary, with the substance left to those it belongs to.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Vyshyvanka Day, 19 May 2016
A greeting for the day, and a note on what a pattern is actually recording.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukrainian cuisine and the produce economy behind it
A kitchen built on fermentation, sour dairy, freshwater fish and buckwheat, in a country that grows most of what it eats. The food is regional in a way…
Folklore & Esoterica -
Tax reform as seen by someone filing the return
Tax reform is usually described in terms of rates. For a company the rate is the least of it; the administration is what determines whether the system is…
Economy & Macro -
Easter 2016
The basket, the cloth over it, and the queue outside the church at seven in the morning.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q1 2016
The EU free trade area took effect on 1 January and eastern trade restrictions took effect the same day. Ukrainian exporters changed direction in a single quarter, and…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
The western ports and why they matter more than the map suggests
Ukraine's Black Sea ports get the attention, but the small Danube terminals and the Adriatic and Baltic routes through neighbouring countries have repeatedly determined what could actually be…
Trade & Investment -
Choosing a distributor without regretting it
The most common expensive mistake a foreign supplier makes here is appointing the first enthusiastic distributor they meet on exclusive terms.
Trade & Investment -
Black Sea logistics: how cargo actually moves, and what happens when a route closes
Odesa, Constanta, the Danube, the Polish rail gauge break and the Turkish ports. The region's freight economics are a study in substitution, and the last decade has tested…
Trade & Investment -
Electronic asset declarations
Ukraine built a system requiring officials to publish what they own, in a searchable public database. The design decisions behind it explain why it worked and why it…
Politics & Governance -
When a free trade area actually starts working, and why it takes longer than the signing
The EU free trade area entered force in 2016. The tariff schedule changed on day one and almost nothing else did, because tariffs were never the binding constraint…
EU & Euro-Atlantic Integration -
Ukraine Annual Review 2015: the worst year and the most reform
The deepest contraction of the period and the largest volume of structural reform since independence, in the same twelve months. The connection between those two facts is the…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
The year Ukraine stopped buying russian gas
Ukraine ended direct gas purchases from russia and replaced them with supply from Europe. The mechanism that made it possible is worth understanding in detail.
Energy & Infrastructure -
Day of Unity 2016
A January day about holding together, in a decade that tested the idea.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q4 2015
Gas imports from the eastern direction ceased entirely in November, the free trade area with the EU took effect on 1 January, and the deepest two-year contraction since…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
The DCFTA, read as a working document
The trade agreement with the European Union is usually discussed as a political milestone. Read as an operating manual, it tells a company exactly what it can and…
Trade & Investment -
The black soil, and what it is actually worth
Chernozem is described in every article about Ukrainian agriculture and explained in almost none of them. What makes it exceptional, how much of it there is, and why…
Agriculture & Food -
How the hryvnia learned to float
A currency defended at a fixed rate looks stable until the day it is not, and then it moves by half in a fortnight. Ukraine learned that twice…
Economy & Macro -
The Association Agreement, read properly
The Association Agreement is remembered as a political document because of what happened around its signature. It is actually a thousand pages of technical obligation with dates attached…
EU & Euro-Atlantic Integration -
Christmas, 7 January 2016
A Christmas greeting, and a note on the dish that is served first and eaten last.
National Days & Anniversaries -
New Year 2016
A New Year greeting from the middle of a difficult decade, written by someone who had by then been here long enough to have opinions about which years…
National Days & Anniversaries
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