In the first quarter of 1998, Ukraine’s foreign trade turnover shrank by 6.9%, states a report by the Ukrainian Economy Ministry’s Macroeconomics Forecast Department. At the same time Ukraine’s negative balance in trade fell by $311.4 million US, although the balance still remains negative (–$159.5 million).
The volume of Ukraine’s exports in the first quarter of 1998 was $3,790,400,000 and of imports $3,949,900,000. In the first quarter last year, these figures were $3,923,700,000 and $4,394,600,000 respectively. Thus the volumes of domestic exports were 3.4% lower and imports 10.1% lower.
According to the Macroeconomics Forecast Department, the growing share of raw materials exports in Ukraine’s foreign trade is disturbing: in the first quarter last year 60% of the total volumes of exports from Ukraine was raw materials whereas in the first quarter this year this figure amounted to 66.8%.
Ukraine’s biggest export item in the first quarter of 1998 was metallurgical products (48.1% of the total volume), engineering production (15%), petrochemical and chemical products (12.2%), and agricultural products (11.3%). Its biggest import items were fuels (54%), engineering products (18.6%), chemical and petrochemical products (7.2%). As compared with the first quarter last year, the import of services has remained virtually unchanged but due to the fact that the rates for transiting Russia’s natural gas via Ukraine have become lower the export of services was also down by 15.5%.






