“Nothing saves”: Ukraine’s economy continues to collapse – expert
The decline of the Ukrainian economy continues despite the fact that recovery has begun in other countries.
Economist Andrei Novak stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We already have the first results of the first quarter. Compared to the first quarter of last year, we have a 2% drop in industry (despite the fact that it also fell last year), in the agricultural sector - minus 5%, in freight transportation, which is a criterion in the economy - minus 6%, in construction - 13%.
That is, in all basic industries that form the basis of the economy, the decline is not even by 1-2%. And at the same time, during the same period in the first quarter, the growth of wage arrears was 8%. This is one of the social outcomes. With such results, in any country in the world the government would have resigned in its entirety long ago.
All this can be explained by the coronavirus. But we must objectively compare all this with the same situation in other countries. There is also coronavirus in other countries. So, most European countries began economic recovery from the middle of last year, some started in the third quarter, some caught up in the fourth quarter and began recovery.
And we have completed the first quarter of 2021 and we continue to fall, and at the same time the conditions are the same, and coronavirus restrictions in Ukraine are much more relaxed than in Europe. People there cannot even go outside. But at the same time, our economic results are much worse, and we receive economic assistance in various forms from many sources.
According to the State Treasury, in the first quarter the state budget was fulfilled by 91%. That is, 9% of the budget is no longer fulfilled... despite the fact that every week the Ministry of Finance enters the foreign market and borrows certain amounts through external and internal loan bonds. To date, almost 100 billion UAH have already been raised. But at the same time, almost 10% of the budget is still not fulfilled. Here's the general state of the economy.
Where does everything come from? Of course, from the actions of the government and the National Bank. The government is fiscal policy, the National Bank is monetary policy. It’s because of them, because of the government and the National Bank that we have this result,” Andrei Novak concluded.
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