Ukraine is a country with huge economic potential and in the long term and it should be more successful than Poland, the Director of Communications of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations told LB.ua on 29 September.
"Agriculture, heavy industry, IT-sphere - Ukraine should become a more successful country than Poland," said Andreas Metz.
Metz stressed that the economic prosperity of Ukraine is the responsibility for Ukrainian government. "The EU is not in a position to make a new Poland from Ukraine," he said.
In the expert's opinion, Ukraine should not completely break off relations with Russia. "Ukraine is an ideal country to become a bridge between the European Union and the EAEC," said Metz.
The representative of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations also noted that doing business with Ukraine has become easier in recent years it thanks to the arrival of the younger generation of government and new mechanisms of checking Ukrainian companies for corruption.
However, Metz acknowledged that corruption remains a serious problem in Ukraine. The second major problem he called the frequent change of people in government who are responsible for the establishment of economic cooperation between the two countries.
Mets also admitted that the economic part of the Association Agreement with the EU "is not very honest" with regard to Ukraine, because the Ukrainian agricultural sector has not received enough access to the European market. He said since as the AA entered into force the export of European goods to Ukraine grew 30%, and Ukraine's exports to the European Union grew only 3%.
"I'm not sure that the AA helps improve investment in Ukraine either," he went on.