Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on assessing the existing experience of capital infrastructure investment projects (megaprojects) developed under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the regions of central eastern Europe and southeastern Europe, with the emphasis on the lessons learned from the projects themselves. Findings of the paper are to serve as guidelines for future development of BRI projects, regardless of where they are implemented.

For the purpose of this paper, research has been conducted into effectiveness and efficiency of successful management of megaprojects located in the markets of CEE and SEE. A comparison has been made between megaprojects developed under the BRI portfolio and similar ones developed by European supported stakeholders. The goal of the research was to outline and map the roots and causes of inefficiency of BRI megaprojects, with the main focus on their cost and schedule overruns. Once key reasons for the inefficiency have been outlined, a proposal is provided on how to address their improvement through usage of modern project management tools. A specific tool, often applied and supported by European Union funding has been discussed and analyzed.

Acknowledging the impact BRI has made in Europe up to 2020, adding to it the 2020/2021 geopolitical ripple effect of the covid19 pandemic on global business, the future effect of the current Russia - Ukraine situation, and finally scaling it up on the future implementation it can have on the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) market through RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), findings of this paper have both an academic and market value. The research findings are equally valuable to future BRI megaprojects' host countries as well as Chinese stakeholders as the assessment is conducted from the strictly scientific and unbiased perspective.

The information and data used in this paper is a result of research activities conducted by the author and supported by the European Commission funded project CHERN – China in Europe Research Network (COST Action 18215).

Paper short abstract:

This article examines the current trends in the development of world commodity markets. Speacial attention paid to the influence of the modern wave of scientific approaches to the study of markets taking into account the cyclical development of the world economy at the beginning of the 21st century

Paper long abstract:

Current trends in the development of world commodity markets are explained with new market conditions: changes in the ratio of market-forming factors. Historically, World Commodity markets occur earlier than the world economy. The world commodity market is characterized by a complex hierarchical structure and is formed under the influence of economic, political and social factors, which allows us to consider it as a large system with a developed infrastructure, relatively autonomous behavior of its constituent elements or subsystems that are in daily interaction with their General high activeness and ability to adapt.

The process of globalization of the world market takes place in a number of directions:

- globalization of the legal and regulatory framework for international trade;

- emergence of globalized clients and global unified contracts;

- competition for profitable (in terms of price or quality) raw materials in the international market;

- formation of a single statistical base for world trade.

The structure of the Word commodity markets is constantly evolving. There are four groups of markets: markets of traditional goods (fuel, machinery and equipment, agricultural products, clothing, footwear, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, precious metals and precious stones, etc.); markets of the latest (high-tech) products (electronic devices, weapons and military equipment, information carriers, pet products, etc.). Special attention is paid to the impact of the current wave of scientific approaches to the study of markets, taking into account the cyclical development of the world economy in the early twenty first century, the severity of macroeconomic shocks, the impact of scientific and technological progress, and changes in natural and climatic conditions.

Approaches and methods of analysis of studying the markets of individual products are currently topical for Uzbekistan.

Advanced information and communication technologies and innovations in exchange activities are widely used for the convenience of business entities, and they are given the opportunity to choose better products and services at more affordable prices. Creating a competitive environment through the creation and implementation of state programs to promote markets is important for the functioning of commodity markets. These measures include;

1. formation of regulatory and legal acts that promote exchange trade in goods, simplifying the mechanism for organizing exchange trade with the introduction of communication technologies;

2. regulation of monopoly of large companies;

3. introduction of market pricing as a condition and necessity of competition in the markets;

4. further reform of the state tax system to ensure entrepreneurial activity of businesses;

5. diversification of exports and analysis of the commodity structure of imports, the formation of a specific list of analogue-products, taking into account the availability of material resources, local human resources and comparative cost estimates.

Market analysis and the ability to have information about the market gives certain advantages, as it allows you to reduce risks when making important decisions such as entering new markets, producing new goods or services, developing new business ideas, expanding existing production and business.

Paper short abstract:

The article is based on a retrospective analysis of statistical and regulatory information in the field of healthcare, economic development, investment and finance. The research process also uses such scientific research methods as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction.

Paper long abstract:

The healthcare system of the Republic of Uzbekistan has gone through several stages of reform. Having joined the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and then the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, Uzbekistan is constantly paying active attention to solving the issues of creating a modern healthcare system in the country that meets international standards, especially the health of women and the younger generation. So. in accordance with Article 65 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, “motherhood and childhood are protected by the state.” One of the first international documents that Uzbekistan joined was the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the country’s parliament in 1992. Such important documents as the Laws “On Guarantees of the Rights of the Child”, “On Protection of the Health of Citizens”, “On protection of the reproductive health of citizens”.

At the present stage of development of domestic healthcare, the government of the country has developed a Strategy for the further development of the healthcare system for 2022-2026, aimed at increasing the human resources potential of medicine and further developing private medicine; improving the reproductive health of the population; providing access to high-tech medical services and laboratory research, etc.

The author comes to the conclusion that the state should remain the main regulator, controller of the healthcare sector, the activities of all medical organizations, even in the context of the development of private medicine. It is important to comply with the antimonopoly legislation, the legislation on the sanitary and epidemiological service; maintain a balance of interests of the medical organizations themselves, their medical and medical personnel and patients, both residents and non-residents of the country; create confidence in each patient in the quality of the services provided to them, in the fair formation of the cost of these services; ensuring social protection of certain segments of the population; to ensure safety for the health of the population and the formation of a healthy generation, to develop a stable need among the population for the implementation of preventive measures in order to preserve their health.

An important point of the study is the conclusion that the modern healthcare system needs not only highly qualified medical and medical personnel, but also professional managers, financial managers, economists, and accountants. The modern healthcare system requires radically new measures to improve the efficiency of the ongoing compliance audit of the activities of medical institutions.

The author considers the advantages and disadvantages in the development of the existing management system in healthcare, considers the feasibility of developing an effective system for regulating activities and increasing the responsibility of heads of medical organizations based on the results of a compliance audit.

Paper long abstract:

The corruption impact studies in the economies in transition have become relatively popular since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1990s. After more than seventy years of autocratic and totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has received its independence in 1991. The country had to go through major institutional transitions from the planned to market economy. After the collapse of the USSR, the public sector reforms in Kazakhstan have been carried out by public officials coming from the old, soviet school of public administration. In result, the government effort to improve public service quality has failed to implement in-depth changes.

Although, the existing literature on corruption stresses the importance of strong institutions to support innovation development, as well as corruption practices as one of the factors hampering innovations growth, there is still unclear evidence on relations between corruption and innovative performance. Theoretical discussion states two approaches to corruption impact. First approach states that corruption “sands the wheel of the business” by creating additional costs hampering the business (such as reduction of resources used for R&D, limiting innovative activities). On the other hand, the corruption can “grease the wheel of the business” by the means of bribes to public officials reducing the barriers to functioning (such as easier to obtain licenses for innovative product/services, secure contracts, etc.).

Although the existing literature provide conflicting results regarding corruption's impact on innovations in the countries in transition due to the weak institutional framework, there is still a need to shed the light on the issue to provide more consistent recommendations to public decision-makers and companies' management.

In comparison with cross-country level studies, the firm-level research on the corruption effects still remain understudied due to the lack of data on the firms’ experience. There is a gap in research on firm-level innovation in Kazakhstan as well as the impact of corruption on firm-level innovation.

This research aims at analyzing the impact of corruption on firm’s innovative performance using the Kazakhstan data of 1314 observations from the World Bank Enterprise Survey conducted in 2019. The research reveals the significant positive relations of corruption on the firm innovative performance. The study contributes to the existing literature on the economies in transition and sheds more light on the firm-level innovative performance determinants.