ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INVESTMENT ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE UNDER QUARANTINE RESTRICTIONS

Abstract

The article considers the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as the most important factor of medium- and long-term changes on the development of entrepreneurship and investment activity not only in Ukraine but also in the world.It is clarified that due to the introduction of forced measures to limit certain activities in connection with quarantine, the business sector suffers the greatest losses, which plays a crucial role in the accumulation of crisis processes in the economy, including the pre-default state of business entities. As a result of quarantine, many Ukrainian companies have frozen investments and production chains, however, sectors that are related to consumer demand (retail and services) are recovering fairly quickly.The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic caused the fall of the world economy, trade and commodity prices, and the outflow of capital from new market economies. The World Bank expects a deep decline in almost all of Ukraine’s major trading partners, which could negatively affect the domestic economy. Investment, in particular, collapsed in 2020 in many emerging market and developing economies, following a decade of persistent weakness. Investment growth is expected to resume in 2021, but, despite an uplift from advances in digital technology, not add enough to reverse the large 2020 decline. The experience of past crises raises a further concern – without urgent course correction, investment could remain feeble for years to come.It was found that Ukraine has entered the current economic crisis witha balanced macroeconomic situation. The relatively low incidence of COVID-19 in most regions has made it possible to gradually lift quarantine restrictions, but the scale of the decline in economic activity in 2020 is already significant. The main risks to Ukraine’s economy have been identified, including the cessation of cooperation with the IMF, thecurtailment of structural reforms, and the prolongation of the coronaviruspandemic, while maintaining restrictive measures for a longer period.It is substantiated that the lack of adaptive state support in Ukrainemay lead to a reduction of almost a third of gross value added, employment and tax revenues from this segment.