WASHINGTON – Ukraine’s new minister of finance, Natalie Jaresko, came to Washington on March 16-17, seeking U.S. assistance in helping to get her country’s economy working normally during these very difficult and uncertain times for Ukraine.
She discussed her government’s needs and plans for recovery with senior officials of the White House, the Treasury and State departments and congressmen, and later talked about them in a packed conference room at the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think tank.
Ms. Jaresko stressed that Ukraine wants a peaceful solution to its conflict in the Donetsk-Luhansk region with Russian-backed separatists, which has killed more than 6,000 and wounded more than 15,000 soldiers and civilians, and displaced more than 1 million residents.
In addition, after 70 years of communism, and 23 years of incomplete economic reforms, mismanagement, corruption by previous regimes, she added, “all of this has left the country in a complex and difficult economic situation.” Ukraine’s economy and industrial output has gone down by 20 percent in 2014, the hryvnia has depreciated by 70 percent, which is pushing the public sector debt to “very dangerous levels.”
She noted that the International Monetary Fund’s recent approval of a $17.5 billion loan program is less than half of the estimated $40 billion Ukraine needs for the next four years.
Ukraine is very thankful to the United States for the assistance it has provided so far, Ms. Jaresko said, but it needs additional support, in the form of financial and humanitarian assistance, military equipment “to put an end to this conflict,” and sanctions against Russia if the peace agreements are not fully implemented.
“But what’s most important, from my perspective, is that we win the war of creating a reformed market economy – strong and capable – that can lead Ukraine forward,” she said. The Ukrainian government must reform the country, fight corruption, improve transparency, accountability and the rule of law, and create conditions that will improve economic growth and prosperity.
And that is the objective of President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian Parliament, she added, noting that “Ukraine now has the most reformist and professional government since independence.”
Ms. Jaresko pointed out that the many of the new, young Cabinet ministers are not career politicians; they come from the private sector and represent different walks of life. She also noted that she recently chose five deputy ministers, all young professionals, without having to get prior approval from anyone, which is not the way things worked before.
“What we share is an absolutely common, unified commitment and an absolute determination to change and reform Ukraine,” she said.
The government now has to focus on stabilizing the banking system, broadening the tax base to include those that are now avoiding the system, creating a more just and fair pension system, and reforming the energy system – now one of the most corrupt in Europe.
She said the government has already set up an independent law enforcement agency to fight corruption and expressed the hope that the many changes and reforms that are being put in place will bring back public confidence in how the government functions.
This is just the beginning, and much remains to be done, and with the support of the United States, Ukraine will succeed, she said, adding, “But I think it’s important for everyone to know that Ukraine is ‘walking the walk’, not just ‘talking the talk’ about reforms.”
Responding to a question about why she said “yes” when asked to join in the government as the minister of finance, she said that “everyone ought to be doing one’s part” in helping Ukraine. During the many years she has lived and worked in Ukraine since its independence, Ms. Jaresko said she has taken every opportunity to help Ukraine in every way that she could. And when the president asks you to serve, she added, “there is no way to say no.”
“Everyone ought to be doing one’s part,” she said, adding that since she couldn’t help on the front lines, this was where she could help. She became the new finance minister of Ukraine on December 2, 2014.
Ms. Jaresko was born in 1965 in Chicago to Ukrainian immigrant parents. Working for the U.S. State Department, she first came to Ukraine in 1992 to serve as the chief of the economics section of the newly opened U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. More recently she has been a co-founder and chief executive officer of the fund-management firm Horizon Capital. She is a board member of the Kyiv School of Economics and the Open Ukraine Foundation, as well as a member of the World Economics Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Financing and Capital and the German Marshall Fund’s Leadership Development Council.