Import regulations and customs duties  - Distribution - Transportation of goods - Standards - Patents and brands

Import regulations and customs duties

Regulations
The only important barrier to trade and investment in Ukraine is the country's difficulty in transiting from a planned economy to a market economy. Following economic reforms, the country experienced a relative success concerning export and investment but all this requires perspectives and a long-term strategy. There are real structural barriers putting a break on trade and investment in Ukraine : corruption, lack of protection in terms of intellectual or industrial property, lack of foreign exchange, an ill defined or too bureaucratic hierarchy, an inefficient and little developed banking system, law, licenses and tariffs changes... Investment is precisely curbed by the absence of private property and a coherent privatisation programme, non convertibility of the country's currency and lack of financial liquidity, change of legislation relating to investment, lack of quality, lack of competitive prices for hiring or purchasing offices of representatives, poor infrastructures, political instability...

Distribution

A few structures ensure the distribution and go on stocking the imports. Supermarkets and retailers selling imported products tend to disappear due to prices that turn to be too high. Products distribution is not followed-up and the client is not very faithful to the products purchased (impulsive purchase).
Franchises are progressively developing.
The most developed distribution circuit is the retail trade. Big stores for food products can either sell all sorts of products or can specialise in the sale of one single type of product.
The stores layout is however mediocre. The stores display space does not highlight the goods and the shelves are ill maintained.
There are also big supermarkets, especially in Kiev like the Department Store Ukraine, the Zum superstore, the big toy store Dytiachy Syit-Children's World, the big jewellery called Koschtan, and finally, concerning perfumery and cosmetics, Lancôme is France's main representative.
The number of private stores is constantly growing, to replace co-operative stores on the long term.

Transportation of goods

By road
The position of Ukraine is strategic: it is situated between Europe and Russia and constitutes a buoyant sector for the country. The road network of this country gathers 170,000 km of national highways and 2,60,000 km of local network. The road network represents nearly two thirds of the national transport system but goods transport by road tends to diminish.

By rail
Concerning the railway network, half of the 227,000 km of railway lines are electrified. The means of air transport is not very safe. It is better to use trains (certainly slow and not comfortable) or hire a vehicle with a chauffeur.

By sea
Maritime transport is carried on through nearly 30 ports.
The river transport extends over 5,000 km of which the Dniestr river holds less than half the navigable surface.

Standards

In 1996, the ISO 9000 standards were adopted as national standards.
The Ukrainian government's decree of 1994 imposed a compulsory certification for all products imported into Ukraine. This decree lays down the list of goods subject to certification and adjusts the certification procedures. The certificates can be produced in two ways: on the one hand, there is an acceptance certificate allowing foreign certification, while, on the other hand there is a certificate of conformity published by a certified Ukrainian agency. This decree says that certificates produced by foreign and competent authorities must be issued by a foreign country which has the same Treaties as in Ukraine.
A competent Ukrainian mechanism for certification called the Ukrainian State Committee on Standards, Certification and Metrology - Ukr Standard, in Ukraine has a network of 93 certification subsidiaries and laboratories in the entire country.

Patents and brands

Since 1993, Ukraine has promulgated 5 laws relating to intellectual property rights in order to preserve inventions, industrial designs, trademarks, industrial equipment and author's copyright against any fraud. Softwares and video recordings can obtain exclusive rights in conformity with the articles 18 and 19 of the law protecting intellectual property rights in Ukraine. There is not yet any law fighting against transgressions or counterfeiting on trademarks. According to the Ukrainian Patent Office, there are no statistics relating to the piracy of books, video recordings or computer software, although duplicate copies of videos, cassettes or CDs are largely and easily available in the stores and in the streets of big urban conglomerations. This protection is inadequate.
Ukraine is a member of World Intellectual Property Organization. This country is also a member of Paris Convention (industrial property) and the Universal Convention for the copyright of authors. In 1995, Ukraine adhered to the Berne Convention. Ukraine is also a member of the international convention of copyright of authors, and of Madrid Agreement (registration of trademarks) and Patent Co-operation Treaty.