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The greatest increase in gross value added in January — April was observed in industry — 10.5%, trade and public catering — 6.9%, construction — 6.1%, transport and communications — 2.1%.

In March 15.1% of enterprises were not in ope-ration.

Compared to the respective period of 1999, the volume of consumer goods produced in January—April 2000 increased by 29.3%, including increase in production of food commodities by 25.2%, alcoholic beverages — by 35.0%, nonfood consumer goods — by 34.7%.

Product	All categories of agricultural entities		Including private sector
	2000	2000 to 1999, %.	2000.	2000 to 1999, %.
Meat (in live weight), thousand tons	926.6	103.1	665.8	100.9
Milk, thousand tons	3078.6	92.6	2112.4	103.9
Eggs, million	3226.4	97.9	2114.3	101.4

Since the beginning of the year the railroad shipment of goods totaled 90.7 million tons. There was 5.5% increase.

Motor transport enterprises delivered 28.2 million tons of cargo to the customers. Rate of decrease was 19.4%. At the same time the freight turnover increased by 16.7% and reached 1.4 billion ton-kilometers.

Main pipelines transported 70.6 tons of freight. There was a 5.2% decrease in transportation due to reduction of gas transit by 5.3% and of internal oil transportation more than by half. Transit of oil increased by 3.6%.

Water transport increased cargo operations by 0.7%. Freight turnover decreased by 13%. The overall volume of water transportation totaled 3.6 million tons; the total freight turnover was 4.5 billion ton-kilometers.

Volume of freight handled in commercial and fishing ports and at industrial terminals increased during four months of the current year by 8.2% compared to the respective period of the previous year and has reached 31.1 million tons due to increase in import freight traffic by 1.8 times, in transit cargo traffic — by 22.4% and in internal deliveries — by 18.7%.

Public passenger vehicles transported 857.6 million passengers and passenger turnover totaled 21.7 billion passenger-kilometers. That is by 6.7% and 1,8% respectively less the level of January — April of the previous year.

In the first quarter the foreign trade turnover of Ukraine in commodities was $6.7 billion, i.e. it increased by 23.7% compared to the first quarter of 1999. At the same time exports increased by 24.7%, imports — by 22.9% and amounted to $3 billion and $3.7 billion respectively. Negative balance of foreign trade in commodities was $ 676.8 million.

Compared to the first quarter of 1999, export of commodities to the CIS countries and Baltic states increased by 24%, imports — by 14.9%, first of all due to the increase in trade with Russian Federation (exports increased by 39.8%, imports — by 29%).

In the first quarter the share of exports to the CIS and Baltic countries was 27.7%, exports to the other countries of the world accounted for 72.3%. The highest percentage of the overall volume of Ukrainian export falls to the export deliveries to the following countries: Russia — 20.4% of the overall Ukrainian export, Turkey — 6.7%, the USA — 6.2%, China — 5.3%, Germany — 4.9%, Italy — 4.3%, Poland — 3.6% and Bulgaria — 3.5%.

Ferrous metals deliveries accounted for 37.8% of the overall exports, products of chemical industry and of other related to it branches — 11.2%, mineral products — 10.7% (out of them mineral fuel, oil and petroleum products make 6.7%), machinery and equipment — 7.2% (including 4.8% of mechanical machinery and equipment and 2.4% of electrical ones), aluminum and aluminum products — 4.1%, textiles and textile products — 3,7%.

In the first quarter of 2000 imports from CIS and Baltic countries to Ukraine accounted for 64.9% of overall imports. The biggest share of the overall import deliveries came from Russia — 54.4%, Germany — 6.2%, Turkmenistan — 3.8%, Bilorus — 2.7%, the USA — 2.3%, Italy and Kazakhstan — 2% each.

Among the goods imported in January—April coal, oil and petroleum products (including natural gas — 39.5%) rank first accounting for 52.3% of overall imports. Deliveries of machinery and equipment made up 11.3% of imports. Chemical products represented 4.5%, base metals and products made of them equaled to 3.9%, plastics and rubber accounted for 3.6% of overall imports.

Overall volume of exported services totaled $ 870.9 million, imported services accounted for $ 315.3 million. Positive balance was $ 555.6 million.

Transportation services made up the biggest share of the overall volume of Ukrainian exports (85.1%). In the Ukrainian imports state services ranked first and accounted for 50.7%. Transportation services made up 21.2% and communication services amounted to 8.5% of imports.

Traditionally, 2/3 of services was exported to the CIS and Baltic countries and more than 95% of them were exported to Russia.

Import of services increased by $ 52.9 million (by 1.2 times).

As of April 1, 2000 the overall volume of foreign direct investments amounted to $ 3374.9 million.

The largest portions of investments are made by non-residents from the following countries: the USA — $ 613.9 million (18.2% of overall investments), the Netherlands — $ 307.5 million (9.1%), United Kingdom — $264.3 million (7.8%), Cyprus — $241.6 million (7.2%), Germany — $ 226.1 million (6.7%), South Korea — $171.2 million (5.1%), Switzerland $141.0 million (4.2%), Virgin Islands (Britain) — $ 139.6 million (4.1%).

Foreign investors are mainly interested in the following sectors: food industry — $ 691.9 million invested (20.5% of the overall volume of investment), internal trade — $573.1 million (17%), machine building and metalwork — $339.4 (10.1%), finance, credits and insurance — $204.3 million (6.1%), fuel industry — $190.2 million (5.6%),

As of April1, 2000 debit indebtedness and credit indebtedness totaled UAH 18502.6 million and UAH 255376.6 million respectively. Compared to the beginning of the year debit indebtedness increased by 8.7%, credit indebtedness — by 11.4%.

As of April 1, 2000 the total amount of non-payments to the budget by economic entities accounted for over UAH 22 billion or 10% of internal debt, and 70% of it was past debt.

Since April 4, 2000 the NBU established a new discount rate at the level of 29% and a lombard rate at the level of 34%.

The balance of indebtedness related to credits granted by Ukrainian banks increased by 5% or by UAH1152.2 million in March and as of April 1, 2000 it amounted to UAH 24104 million including UAH 10913 million of credits denominated in national currency.

Interest rate on credits of commercial banks was 35.7% in March (41.0% in February) and deposit interest rate was 11.1% (14.1% in February).

Item	Consolidated budget		Including State Budget
	in January—March of 2000	as % of GDP	in January—March of 2000	as % of GDP
Total revenues	8956.4	27.4	6524.0	19.9
including:
Tax revenues — total	5880.1	18.0	3729.8	11.4
including
enterprise profit tax	1501.2	4.6	1093.1	3.3
personal income tax	1175.9	3.6	0.1	0.0
payment for land	223.9	0.7	—	—
value-added tax	1885.7	5.8	1885.7	5.8
excise tax	323.3	1.0	300.4	0.9
local taxes and fees	101.6	0.3	—	—
Non-tax revenues — total	1932.7	5.9	1642.5	5.0
including:
receipts from privatization	420.0	1.3	385.3	1.2
receipts of depreciation charges	50.7	0.2	50.7	0.2
state duty	70.1	0.2	47.6	0.1
State target funds	1131.0	3.5	924.5	2.8
Total expenditures	7969.5	24.4	5701.2	17.4
including expenditures on:
state administration	520.4	1.6	366.8	1.1
law enforcement activities and ensuring security of the state	419.9	1.3	372.7	1.1
social and cultural establishments and activities	3416.1	10.5	1265.5	3.9
industry, power generation and construction	471.6	1.4	437.1	1.3
agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting	94.0	0.3	38.2	0.1
transport, roads, communications, telecommunications and computer science	260.5	0.8	34.6	0.1
housing and public utilities	168.2	0.5	0.0	0.0
national defense	371.3	1.1	369.7	1.1
Chornobyl relief fund	337.0	1.0	337.0	1.0
public specialized funds	507.9	1.6	493.3	1.5
Excess of receipts over expenditures	986.9	3.0	822.8	2.5

As of May 10, 2000 gold and currency reserves of NBU accounted for $ 1062 million ($ 1230 million at the beginning of the year).

As of the beginning of April official hryvnia exchange rate to US dollar was UAH 542.76/100 USD, average monthly rate in April was UAH 542.7/ 100 USD (official rate as of May 15 was UAH 539.31/100 USD.

As of April 4, 2000 the population of Ukraine was 49.6 million. In the first quarter of the current year the population decreased almost by 150 thou-sand mainly due to the natural reasons (the natural decline of the population was 141 thousand). Due to migration outflow the population of Ukraine decreased by 7 thousand.

In the first quarter of 2000 the birth rate was 7.7 newborns per 1000 of population. This figure exceeds the birth rate in the respective period of the previous year (7.6 newborns per 1000). At the same time the death rate increased from 16.6 to 19.1 per 1000 of population.

Unfavorable trends are observed in the marriage situation. The number of marriages declined from 4.2 (in the first quarter of 1999) to 3.4 per 1000 of population in the first quarter of 2000. The divorce rate increased from 3.3 to 3.8.

Source: The State Committee on Statistics and the National Bank of Ukraine.
The official hryvnia rate as of late March 2000 100 USD/542.76 UAH.

Copyright© 2000, The Ukrainian Economic Monitor