WASHINGTON, D.C. - The "Ukraine Macroeconomic Situation – March 2020" analytical report with several charts and graphs can be found at the link below. 
The monthly Macroeconomic Situation report is prepared by SigmaBleyzer, www.SigmaBleyzer.com, and The Bleyzer Foundation (TBF), www.BleyzerFoundation.org, Kyiv, Ukraine, who are long-time members of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), http://www.USUBC.org.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  (the entire March 2020 Macroeconomic Report Situation found in the PDF document: SB_Ukr-Monthly_Ec_Report_March_2020.pdf

Executive Summary

  • On March 4th, the Verkhovna Rada accepted the resignation of PM Honcharuk. Denis Shmygal, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Development of Local Communities (a former governor of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast and former DTEK executive), was approved by Ukraine's Parliament as the new PM.  
  • Due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, since March 15th, Ukraine has introduced quarantine measures. Many banks are closed, public transportation is reduced, many newspapers and firms have suspended work. In addition, the country’s borders are closed.  
  • From April to December 2020, Ukraine has to repay about USD 4 billion in external loans. The recent events will make it difficult for the country to refinance these amounts in the private capital markets.  Therefore, the new government is actively seeking to expand and accelerate disbursement under IMF programs.   
  • Economic growth in the last quarter of 2019 slowed down to 1.5% yoy. Monthly data indicates that this underperformance continued in January and February 2020.  But further economic deterioration is expected, as the current worldwide coronavirus pandemic is generating severe economic slowdowns in many countries, including Ukraine.  GDP is likely to decline during the first half of the year and GDP growth could be reduced to around 2% in 2020. 
  •  Consumer inflation further decelerated to 3.2% yoy in January.  However, devalations during March and the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus is likely to increase inflation by the end of the year.
  • Banking deposits continued to expand in January, while banking lending activities continued to be sluggish. 
  • During March 2020, the UAH/USD exchange rate was on the depreciatory path, depreciating to around 27.75 UAH/USD by March 20.  
  • In January 2020, Ukraine's current account had a surplus of USD 590 million. The major source of the current account surplus was a reduction in the net foreign trade deficit to an almost balanced result of USD 6 million. Ukrainian financial account net inflow amounted USD 315 million in January.  Therefore, the overall consolidated surplus of the balance of payments amounted to USD 905 million.  This surplus increased international reserve to USD 25.7 billion.