Page 7 - UKRRptApr19

and $20bn in 2020. Meeting these bills or refinancing them is going to be very hard unless the IMF programme stays on track. Under the new Stand by agreement (SBA) with the IMF the fund will disburse $3.8bn this year but Ukraine will still need to raise $4bn-$6bn from the international capital markets and another $2bn-$4bn from the domestic market.
2.0 Politics
2.1 Ukraine moves up four places in Rule of Law index in 2018
Nearly all the countries of Eastern Europe made progress in improving the rule of law in 2018, according to the World Justice Project annual ranking “ Rule of law index 2019 ” but drilling into the subfactors and big disparities persist.
The top performer from the 13 countries surveyed in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region was the progressive small republic of Georgia that keep its score unchanged at 0.61 and remained ranked at 41 place overall out of 126 counties surveyed.
The biggest improver in the region was Russia that moved up six places to an overall rank of 88 with a score of 0.47 but it remained near the bottom of its group. Neighbouring Ukraine also moved up four places to an over rank of 77 place with a score of 0.5 that puts it in the middle of the group.
And perhaps surprisingly Belarus was the best performing countries from Eastern Europe at 66 place overall with a score of 0.52 and fifth best in WJP regional ranking.
Uzbekistan is another eye-catcher that moved up two places but remains near the bottom of the global table at 94 place from 128. That compares with its neighbour Kazakhstan that also moved up two places but it far higher placed – higher than any other country in Eastern Europe or Central Asia – ranked 65 overall with a score of 0.52.
Turkey was by far the worst in the group and ranks 109 overall with one of the worst performances in the world.
Subfactors
Drilling into the various factors that make up the index and Russia performs very poorly on the constraints on government such as the constitution, institutional checks and balances as well as non-government factors like a free press.
The authoritarian systems in most of Eastern Europe shows up in this category the most as all the countries – even the most progressive on this score, Ukraine – as they all rank below their overall scores, pulled down by their lack of democracy or functioning democratic institutions.
Russia scored a lowly 0.37 in this subcategory ranking it 112 out of 128 countries, just ahead of Belarus with 0.36 and 112. That compares to Ukraine’s 0.46 and 90 rank, which put it in the middle of the field. Again Kazakhstan performs better than Russia and Belarus with 0.43 and a rank of 100, but less well than Ukraine.
The “lack of corruption” subfactor threw up some bigger surprises with Russia outperforming all the other counties in its region with a score and rank of 0.45 and 68 – both much better than its overall results.
7 UKRAINE Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com