This year Zhytomyr was ranked first in the ranking of the most comfortable cities for doing business in Ukraine “Regional Doing Business – 2020”. The ranking reflects how favourable the investment climate in Ukrainian regional centres is. Better Regulation Delivery Office presented relevant information at the website.

Chernihiv oblast was ranked second, the city of Kyiv third, Rivne oblast fourth, Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts fifth.

Zhytomyr oblast received high scores for the components “setting up business”, “formalization of a land plot” and “joining the electrical grid”.

It has been pointed out that in the course of the survey the respondents noted a relatively short time it takes to go through the process of enterprise registration (about three days) and a few necessary visits to state authorities (about two days). A high quality of services provided by the Taxpayer Service Centre of Zhytomyr State Tax Office has also been emphasized.

However, it has been specified that Zhytomyr received low scores for the indicators “electronic services”, and also got only half of the scores for the criteria “payment of local taxes” and “getting construction permits”.

2020 turned out to be an extremely difficult year for carrying out entrepreneurial activity not only in the city itself, but also in the whole Ukraine. Quarantine restrictions made business owners make tough choices. Entrepreneurs changed way and type of activity, transferred to online. They had to make some employees redundant, reduce production. Representatives of the Department of Economic Development of Zhytomyr City Council told about a series of decisions aimed at decreasing a fiscal, financial and time load on entrepreneurs.

“A regulation on the compensation of interest paid by business entities on long-term and medium-term loans taken in bank institutions has been approved; tenants have been exempted from payment of rent for property of Zhytomyr city amalgamated community as prescribed by law since the introduction of lockdown till its end; the tax rate on single tax has been reduced and set at the rate of 0% for 1st and 2nd group of single tax payers; the procedure for the installation of seasonal trade sites has been simplified.”

Reference: Ranking “Regional Doing Business – 2020” is determined as a sum of scores that a regional centre receives in terms of six components: setting up business, payment of local taxes, formalization of a land plot, joining the electrical grid, electronic services and getting construction permits. The evaluation was carried out in accordance with the adapted methodology of the World Bank on the basis of the survey of Ukrainian entrepreneurs. 1754 respondents from 25 oblasts and the city of Kyiv participated in the survey. Ranking “Regional Doing Business”, which evaluates how easy it is to do business in all regional centres of Ukraine, has been developed by BRDO experts since 2017.