Despite slight growth in the last two years, Ukraine’s economic freedom remains the worst in Europe, according to a report published on Feb. 2.
The 2018 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual guide by U.S. conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, ranked Ukraine 150th out of 180 countries. Among European countries, Ukraine took last place at 44th.
“Ukraine’s oligarch-dominated economy had already slowed before Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea and ongoing aggression in the eastern part of the country badly damaged economic growth,” the report reads.
The index covers 12 key factors influencing economic freedom that are divided into four categories: rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency and open markets.
Ukraine’s significant improvement in monetary freedom and investment freedom, as well as a positive tendency in six other factors, made an impact on its overall score that has increased by 3.8 points since last year.
Yet Ukraine’s 51.9 score is below the regional and world averages.
“Significant progress was made on reforms to make the country more prosperous, democratic, and transparent, but more improvements are needed, including fighting corruption, developing capital markets, privatizing state-owned enterprises, and improving the legislative framework and the rule of law,” reads the 2018 Index of Economic Freedom.
Ukraine’s weakest factors include judicial effectiveness, government integrity, and financial freedom.
Hong Kong tops the ranking and has been leading the ranking for the past 11 years. North Korea ranked 180th, occupying the last place.
Hong Kong is followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland and Australia. The United Kingdom ranked 8th, Canada 9th, and the United States 18th.
Overall the scores improved for 102 countries and declined for 75 this year.
Europe showed the best results among all the regions having 18 of the world’s 34 freest economies.
