GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF PRIORITIZING TASKS FOR DEVELOPING UKRAINE'S WATER TRANSPORT

Topicality. Water transport is of crucial importance for the economic prosperity and national security of Ukraine. Most sectors of the economy depend on water transport and its infrastructure, logistics networks, ships, and personnel in peacetime and emergencies, especially in times of war.Aim and tasks. The purpose of the work is to determine the priority directions for the development of the water transport business sector of Ukraine during the post-war recovery period.Materials and Methods. We used the following methods to solve the set tasks: system-structural, computational, and analytical – when analyzing the business sector of water transport in Ukraine; abstract-logical analysis and grouping – in developing guiding principles for prioritization of tasks for the post-war development of Ukrainian water transport.Research results. Entrepreneurship, as a full-fledged type of economic activity, uses production resources: natural, labor, financial, and informational. The listed resources are consumed by any entrepreneurship, which is the transformation of resources into final business products: goods and services. For entrepreneurship, the issue of profit is the most important. There are absolute and relative indicators of profit. Profitability is a relative indicator of profit. This indicator shows the degree of return of production factors used in production. The profitability of an entrepreneur's activity shows the degree of return on all advanced capital, used information, and invested labor. For an extended period, Ukrainian water transport enterprises' profitability was deficient and was at most 2%. In addition, until 2015, it had negative values, and only in the pre-war years did the level of profitability of all activities of water transport enterprises of Ukraine begin to grow and exceed 12%. Thus, determining the directions of prioritization of tasks for the development of the business sector of water transport in Ukraine must be carried out depending on their impact on the profitability of such enterprises by the following guiding principles, which apply to all goals and tasks of the post-war reconstruction and development of water transport of Ukraine: 1) transportation of goods by waterways is an essential component of the multimodal transport system; 2) modern, cost-effective and safe water transport is vital for economic prosperity and protection of the economic security of Ukraine; 3) water transport in Ukraine should be flexible and resistant to shocks; 4) water transport allows the unloading of road and railway routes and contributes to the environmentalization of freight transport; 5) improved financial support for the implementation of competitive strategies in the conditions of structural changes in the macro-environment of the water transport sectors of Ukraine; 6) cooperation between the state and the business sector of water transport is of crucial importance for the economic prosperity and protection of the economic security of Ukraine; 7) innovations as the basis of the post-war recovery and development of water transport in Ukraine.Conclusion. The results of our research allowed us to conclude that water transport integrates Ukraine's economy into a powerful global system that moves more than 90% of world trade by tonnage, including consumer goods, agricultural products, energy, and raw materials. Ukraine's water transport business sector, vessels, infrastructure, and personnel that ensure their operation plays a crucial role in economic prosperity and protection of national economic security. Thus, within the research framework, we identified four primary areas of prioritization of tasks for developing the entrepreneurial sector of water transport in Ukraine.