@Ukraine:Economy
Overview: After Russia, the Ukrainian republic was far and away the most important economic component of the former Soviet Union, producing more than three times the output of the next-ranking republic. Its fertile black soil generated more than one-fourth of Soviet agricultural output, and its farms provided substantial quantities of meat, milk, grain, and vegetables to other republics. Likewise, its diversified heavy industry supplied equipment and raw materials to industrial and mining sites in other regions of the former USSR. In early 1992, the Ukrainian government liberalized most prices and erected a legal framework for privatization, but widespread resistance to reform within the government and the legislature soon stalled reform efforts and led to some backtracking. Loose monetary and fiscal policies pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels in late 1993. Greater monetary and fiscal restraint lowered inflation in 1994, but also contributed to an accelerated decline in industrial output. Since his election in July 1994, President KUCHMA has developed - and parliament has approved - a comprehensive economic reform program, maintained financial discipline, and reduced state controls over prices, the exchange rate, and foreign trade. Implementation of KUCHMA's economic agenda will encounter considerable resistance from parliament, entrenched bureaucrats, and industrial interests and will contribute to further declines in output and rising unemployment which will sorely test the government's ability to stay the course on reform in 1995.
National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $189.2 billion (1994 estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1992)
National product real growth rate: -19% (1994 est.)
National product per capita: $3,650 (1994 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 14% per month (1994)
Unemployment rate: 0.4% officially registered; large number of unregistered or underemployed workers
Budget: revenues: $NA expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA
Exports: $11.8 billion (1994) commodities: coal, electric power, ferrous and nonferrous metals, chemicals, machinery and transport equipment, grain, meat partners: FSU countries, China, Italy, Switzerland
Imports: $14.2 billion (1994) commodities: energy, machinery and parts, transportation equipment, chemicals, textiles partners: FSU countries, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic