The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has left unchanged its forecast for Ukrainian economy growth in 2018 at 3% and expects that the same pace would be retained in 2019, the bank has said in a survey on its website. The bank said that large foreign exchange debt repayments by the public sector falling due in 2018-20 and the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections cycle in 2019 represent important risks to the growth outlook.
Continuation of the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) programme is uncertain due to the lacking commitment on the part of the authorities to meet key reform requirements, the bank said.
The EBRD said that the growth of Ukrainian economy remains subdued.
As reported, the World Bank remained unchanged its forecast for Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2018-2019 at 3.5% and 4% respectively.
However, the bank said that if reforms are delayed, growth could drop below current levels in an uncertain macroeconomic environment as financing risks rapidly increase and GDP growth could slow to 2%.
The IMF retained its forecast for Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2018 at 3.2%, while it reviewed downwards the forecast for 2019 to 3.3% from 4%.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) predicts that Ukraine’s GDP would accelerate in 2018 to 3.4% from 2.5% in 2017 and slow to 2.9% in 2019-2020.
Open data in 2017 brought more than $700 million, or 0.67% of GDP, into the economy of Ukraine, according to a study conducted by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in partnership with the London-based Open Data Institute. “If Ukraine continues to work with open data, in particular publish datasets from government decree No. 835, then economic benefits from open data until 2025 will be up to $1.4 billion, or 0.92% of GDP,” said KSE member Artur Kovalchuk, who is one of the authors of the study.
The study finds that today about 3,000-4,000 people directly work with open data, and its further development will translate into the need for personnel with experience in collecting, analyzing, using data.
In addition, Project Manager of the USAID/ UK aid-funded Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services program /TAPAS Petro Matiaszek says that according to the research, the potential of open data in Ukraine is fully comparable with that of the EU. Thus, a recent study by Capgemini for the European Commission estimates direct effects from opening authorities’ data in the EU countries by 2020 vary within 0.37-1.58% of GDP (EUR 55.3 billion).
The study “Economic Potential of Open Data for Ukraine” was conducted with the support of the State Agency for E-Governance and is the first attempt to assess the direct economic effect of opening government data and the potential created by such data for the national economy.
The findings of the research, methodology and other data are available at tapas.org.ua.
