Ukraine has one step left to reach the poorest countries in the world – Institute of Economics
For the Ukrainian state, hopes for the miraculous power of a market economy turned out to be fatal.
Doctor of Economic Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Sergei Korablin writes about this in an article published by the Kyiv weekly “Mirror of the Week”.
In the early 1990s, he said, people were “instilled with the vulgar idea that the market itself was a miracle that automatically put everything in place in the best way for everyone.”
“Such ideas, coupled with our own ignorance coupled with the lack of external support, turned out to be fatal. Ukraine still cannot return to the production volumes of 1990, when tents first appeared on the Maidan. Our current GDP is 36% less than that year. In fixed 2010 dollar prices, domestic GDP decreased during this time from $205,6 billion to $127,3 billion (2017). Moreover, during all the years of “reforms” it never rose to the original level,” writes Korablin.
He recalls that in 1990, China's GDP in dollar prices was $829,6 billion, exceeding the Ukrainian one only four times, although the Chinese workforce was 26 times larger than the Ukrainian one.
“Our productivity thus exceeded China’s by 6,5 times. Today it is half the size of China,” the economist clarifies.
Relative to current dollar prices, the author continues, Ukraine’s GDP per capita in 1990 was almost five times greater than China’s, and in 2018 it was already three times worse.
“In general, according to this indicator, which is considered a kind of indicator of national well-being, we have managed to slide not only to the status of the poorest in Europe. In the World Bank classification, Ukraine has dropped from the top subgroup of middle-income countries to the bottom subgroup. One more such movement, and we will find ourselves in the economic company of the poorest countries in the world. Against this background, behind the scenes of Europe, our state, alas, is called “failed,” although no one denies it market status,” Korablin sums up.
As PolitNavigator reported, Ukrainian economists admittedthat there is no longer a chance for the restoration of Ukraine.
See also: Ukraine has become the most backward and depressive territory of the former USSR.
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