The deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in 2018 grew by 54.5% compared with 2017, to $9.801 billion (to $6.343 billion in 2017), the State Statistics Service said on Thursday. In 2018, exports of goods increased by 9.4%, or $4.073 billion, compared to 2017, to $47.340 billion, while imports rose by 15.2%, or $7.542 billion, to $57.141 billion.
The ratio of coverage of imports by exports was 0.83 (0.87 in 2017).
The State Statistics Service specified that foreign trade operations were conducted with partners from 221 countries of the world.
Average retail prices for petrol and diesel fuel in Ukraine in the period from February 8 to February 15, 2019, fell by 0.18-0.40%, while prices of LPG fell by 3.04%, according to data from the A-95 Consulting Group (Kyiv).
Changes in average retail fuel prices UAH per liter in Ukraine:
©Source: A-95 Consulting Company
The amount of money transfers to Ukraine using international payment systems in 2018 was eight times more than the sum of money sent from Ukraine.
According to a posting on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the share of transfers in money transfer systems to Ukraine was 17% from the United States, 13% from Israel, 9% from Russia, 8% from Italy, 7% from Poland, and 46% from other countries (221 countries).
In 2018, both residents and nonresidents used money transfer systems to transact the following transfers: $2.301 billion in equivalent to Ukraine (28.28% of total transfers); $294 million in equivalent abroad (3.61% of total transfers) and UAH 150.53 billion or $5.541 billion in equivalent within Ukraine (68.11% of the total value of transfers).
These data do not include information on transfers transacted by banks, card payment schemes and post offices.
Domestic transfers in money transfer systems over 2018 has increased by 24.3% year-over-year (in 2017 domestic transfers accounted for over UAH 120.5 billion or $4.456 billion in equivalent). Most of domestic transfers (92%) are transacted in systems established by nonbank institutions.
Kness Group, a large EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor in Ukraine, has launched first own solar power plants with a total power capacity of 33 MW, Director General of the group Serhiy Shakalov has said in an interview with the Energy Reform website.
The total investment in construction of the plants was EUR 30 million, including EUR 4.5 million of own funds of the group, and the rest is borrowed funds from Danish IFU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The major EPC contractor includes the engineering company Podilsky Energy Consulting. The company sells inverter equipment, power collection cabinets, generation monitoring systems and supporting structures for Ukrainian-made solar cell arrays. In February 2019, the group launched a first large solar cell arrays plant in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian media Internet advertising market expands by 39.9% in 2018, to UAH 3.511 billion, the Ukrainian Internet Association (UIA) has said.
The share of direct sales on this market over the period came to 56%. The segments of media Internet advertising are the following: banner advertising with 37% of the market share (a decline by 12.6 percentage points (p.p.) on 2017), in-stream video (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, pause-roll, overlay-advertisement, picture-in-pause) was – 42% (growth of 15.8 p.p.), in-page video advertising (content-roll) – 9% (a rise by 6.8 p.p.), other non-standard solutions (pop-up and pop-up pop-ups, catfish and screen-glide formats, synchronous banners, frontlines, full-screen advertising, sound advertisement in a digital audio stream and other types) – 7% (a decline by 5 p.p.) and sponsorship – 5% (a fall by 4.8 p.p.).
The share of mobile media Internet advertising (targeted at mobile device users) of the total turnover of media Internet advertising was the following: 30% for banner advertising (a rise by 16 p.p.), 29% for in-stream video (a rise by 18 p.p.), 14% for in-page video (content-roll, a rise by 8.5 p.p.), 14% – for non-standard solutions (growth by 10.5 p.p.) and 13% for sponsorship (a rise by 12 p.p.).
The share of Programmatic (automated advertising) was 25.91% for purchases by agencies and 50.35% for platforms.
The share of social media and instant messengers (FB, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, Viber and other applications) was also determined in advertising – 34.45% (a rise by 8 p.p.).
The methodology for measuring the volume of media Internet advertising was based on a cross-sectional analysis of survey data from the largest advertising agencies, websites and sales houses.
“The survey involved leading online advertising agencies: Dentsu Aegis Network Ukraine, razom communications, Sigma, ITCG, Havas Digital, Publicis One, TMGU, AdWork, DIEVO, MediaHead, Netpeak, newage, and representatives of the largest sites, holdings and sales-houses: Autocentre, Edipress, Lux (24 channel), RBC, RIA, Ukr.net, UMH, Go2Net, FISH, Adpartner, Rontar, Online.ua, Novoye Vremia, RST and Obozrevatel,” the association said.
In 2018, the Russian Federation granted citizenship to 83,081 citizens of Ukraine, according to statistics on the migration situation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. In particular, 83,081 Ukrainians received Russian citizenship (accepted, restored, recognized) in January-December. Also during this period, a decision was made to issue 64,861 residence permits for Ukrainians (currently, 170,638 Ukrainians live by residence permits in Russia).
In addition, in 2018, citizens of Ukraine received 77,075 permits for temporary residence (160,706 Ukrainians currently live under such permits in the Russian Federation).
As reported, 85,119 Ukrainians received Russian citizenship in 2017.
