Debt - external:
$14.2 billion (2002)
Economic aid - recipient: $637.7 million (1995); IMF Extended Funds Facility $2.2 billion (1998)
Currency:
hryvnia (UAH)
Currency code:
UAH
Exchange rates:
hryvnia per US dollar - 5.33 (2002), 5.37 (2001), 5.44 (2000), 4.13
(1999), 2.45 (1998)
Fiscal year:
calendar year
Communications Ukraine
Telephones - main lines in use:
9.45 million (April 1999)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
236,000 (1998)
Telephone system:
general assessment: Ukraine's telecommunication development plan,
running through 2005, emphasizes improving domestic trunk lines,
international connections, and the mobile cellular system
domestic: at independence in December 1991, Ukraine inherited a
telephone system that was antiquated, inefficient, and in disrepair;
more than 3.5 million applications for telephones could not be
satisfied; telephone density is now rising slowly and the domestic
trunk system is being improved; the mobile cellular telephone system
is expanding at a high rate
international: two new domestic trunk lines are a part of the
fiber-optic Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) system and three Ukrainian links
have been installed in the fiber-optic Trans-European Lines (TEL)
project which connects 18 countries; additional international
service is provided by the Italy-Turkey-Ukraine-Russia (ITUR)
fiber-optic submarine cable and by earth stations in the Intelsat,
Inmarsat, and Intersputnik satellite systems