Is going to be complex job that will require Europe and America to keep an eye on since they have dropped so much money into the place and it HAS HAD serious issue’s before the current conflict….
Attention to salvaging Ukraine’s damaged cities and infrastructure has focused largely on its cost. The tussle over the framework that will in large part be expected to carry out that restructuring has taken place below the surface, gaining far less public notice.
Any shift for Ukraine from a wartime to a peacetime economy promises to be fraught, pitting ideas for a strong central government that would target spending with a tighter hand against one with lighter-touch regulation in which free markets dominate. There are other tricky, though perhaps less prominent, transitions that would need to be simultaneously navigated….
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The lack of integration exists in sector after sector. Parts for everything from nuclear reactors to refrigerators previously supplied by Russia will need to come from elsewhere.
More challenging is the legacy of Ukraine’s flawed and incomplete transition to a modern, democratic market economy after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Parts of its commercial world have been plagued by corruption and cronyism. And Ukraine has yet to create the kind of resilient political institutions that undergird the standards of governance set by the European Union, which is likely to be its largest trading partner if the war is won…
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“There is this idealistic view that the government can direct resources and people will listen,” said Yuriy Gorodnichenko, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “As somebody who grew up in Ukraine,” he added, “that’s not how it works.”
“The government doesn’t have capacity to regulate,” he said. “It doesn’t have a professional, well-trained bureaucracy.”….
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The scope of the task is mind-boggling. Ukraine has recently driven back Russian forces, but the pace and destructiveness of Russian attacks on civilians and infrastructure has picked up, with Moscow targeting power facilities, fuel depots and waterworks. Some cities have been nearly obliterated, and the path of devastation is wide and deep across the country, affecting factories, homes, offices, phone lines, hospitals, churches, warehouses, ports, railways and farmland. The country’s gross domestic product is expected to plunge 45 percent this year, according to the World Bank.
Nearly eight million people have sought temporary refuge outside the country, while seven million inside have been displaced. Education, social and health services will need to be restored along with the physical infrastructure.
Estimates of the total cost have varied widely and are still being updated. Over the summer, Ukraine’s prime minister put the price of reconstruction at $750 billion. Every day that the war continues, that figure increases. Even if much of that cost is borne by other nations and global organizations, Ukraine is expected to rack up big debts and will need a healthy economy when the fighting ends for a sustained recovery….
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The industrial base has been destroyed, but Ukraine is oriented toward Europe and is appealing to Western investment. It has an educated population and a competitive advantage when it comes to agribusiness. And, Mr. Patrone added, “Ukraine has strong and vibrant civil society.”…
I will add to the above….
A rebuilt Ukraine is going to be a STRONG country with a bit of chip on its shoulder….
Holding its own against Russia….
A country that will be worried and hungrey for advanced Western Military strength …
A country that IS strong to look for tactical nuclear weapons….
A country that will have TONS of Western investment and service industries knocking on their doors….
All the above could and will have Europe, America and Russia a bit nervous……
image….Kyiv, Ukraine, is the capital of a country that “doesn’t have a professional, well-trained bureaucracy,” said Yuriy Gorodnichenko, an economist calling for deregulation.Credit…Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times