Is Ukraines optimism misplaced?

The conference began with a breathe of fresh air. Through the years of the crony establishment corruption was rife and the ports of Ukraine and trade facilitation suffered badly. Today there is a ray of hope with the new government intent on making things work in a western way and fighting corruption.

The new faces of Government ministers and deputy ministers are young, speak perfect English and are probably western educated. They are intent on making changes and are rushing through new laws and replacing the old guard.

Yet not everyone is happy. While those new laws are now in place, some of them are imperfect, others were not thought through and too many are not being implemented on the ground. Here, the biggest obstacle to trade facilitation and to the ending of corruption is, as is often the case in such situations, Customs.

Despite increased e-filing, less container inspections and other good things, new problems have arisen. Customs considers its role to be a money collector for the Government and wants to increase its productivity. That does not go hand in hand with helping trade to move in and out of the country which would undoubtedly be a better way to improve the economy and to attract foreign investment.

Somehow in the evolution of new regulations someone added that customs had the right to weigh containers, the percentage of which is at its discretion. This seems to me just another way to upset shippers and terminal operators by shifting from inspection to weighing and just another way to bring in funds and to continue the process of corruption.

And that continued corruption is the crux of the problem in Ukraine. While some things have changed, others have not and there is no unified industry group to square off against the Government; each group works on its own. Without unity there will be no change and without change there can be no improvement.