Would Ukraine benefit from a Special Economic Zone centered on one of its cities, like China did adjacent to Hong Kong?
Creating a designated area and saying "export businesses and FDI especially welcome here" seems to help overcome both incumbent resistance to reforms (they can be isolated to a small area at first) and foreign investor n…
Would Ukraine benefit from a Special Economic Zone centered on one of its cities, like China did adjacent to Hong Kong?
Creating a designated area and saying "export businesses and FDI especially welcome here" seems to help overcome both incumbent resistance to reforms (they can be isolated to a small area at first) and foreign investor nervousness (they can expect a critical mass of development-oriented services sooner if it's all happening in one area).
My understanding (admittedly weak) of Ukrainian politics in the past decade or two is that it had some similarities with Belgium - a geographic divide between a poor part that spoke the same language as their big neighbor, and a rich part that wanted greater global integration. Putting economic development tools primarily in the west of Ukraine seems like it could exacerbate these internal tensions, unless you encourage greater internal migration of Russian speakers from the east into the richer west.
The Western Ukraine is less industrialized and generates lower fraction of the countries GDP than the East. Lviv just looks prettier because it has less of Soviet architecture legacy. So developing the West might actually make the country more balanced in terms of economy.
Not quite. Ukrainian and Russian are pretty similar languages (unlike Dutch and French). More importantly:
1. Most Ukrainians are bilingual. Everyone had to learn Russian in school during Soviet times (while many in the west and north, especially in rural areas, spoke Ukrainian) and everyone has had to learn Ukrainian in school since independence while many in the east and south as well as most city folks spoke Russian.
2. Putin has supercharged Ukrainian nationalism, so even folks who never spoke any Russian in every day conversation would rather use Ukrainian now.
Would Ukraine benefit from a Special Economic Zone centered on one of its cities, like China did adjacent to Hong Kong?
Creating a designated area and saying "export businesses and FDI especially welcome here" seems to help overcome both incumbent resistance to reforms (they can be isolated to a small area at first) and foreign investor nervousness (they can expect a critical mass of development-oriented services sooner if it's all happening in one area).
Actually yeah that's probably a great idea. I'm thinking Lviv, which is at lowest risk of Russian bombardment.
My understanding (admittedly weak) of Ukrainian politics in the past decade or two is that it had some similarities with Belgium - a geographic divide between a poor part that spoke the same language as their big neighbor, and a rich part that wanted greater global integration. Putting economic development tools primarily in the west of Ukraine seems like it could exacerbate these internal tensions, unless you encourage greater internal migration of Russian speakers from the east into the richer west.
The Western Ukraine is less industrialized and generates lower fraction of the countries GDP than the East. Lviv just looks prettier because it has less of Soviet architecture legacy. So developing the West might actually make the country more balanced in terms of economy.
Not quite. Ukrainian and Russian are pretty similar languages (unlike Dutch and French). More importantly:
1. Most Ukrainians are bilingual. Everyone had to learn Russian in school during Soviet times (while many in the west and north, especially in rural areas, spoke Ukrainian) and everyone has had to learn Ukrainian in school since independence while many in the east and south as well as most city folks spoke Russian.
2. Putin has supercharged Ukrainian nationalism, so even folks who never spoke any Russian in every day conversation would rather use Ukrainian now.
You probably meant "anything but Russian" rather than "any Russian" in the last sentence, otherwise there's no contradiction.
Right.