Ukraine’s economy could contract by 6-7% in 2020, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Dmytro Sologub has said.
“Based on the data on the decline in the first quarter, industrial production and transport in April, I think the decline may be more severe than expected. Accordingly, if we transfer the dynamics to the annual rate, we can already talk about a 6-7% decline, not about 5%, as was the case before,” Sologub said.
He noted a number of areas in which there were major problems during the coronavirus lockdown.
“As for transport, which was actually banned, we see almost minus 100% there. The situation is a little better in the restaurant business: many companies quickly switched to work on delivery, so there are different figures there – somewhere minus 80%, somewhere minus 50%,” Sologub said.
He added that economic recovery would most likely not be fast.
The International Monetary Fund earlier forecasts a 7.7% decline in Ukraine’s GDP in 2020. (Ukrinform/Business World Magazine)
