Business news from Ukraine

The surplus of Ukraine’s consolidated balance of payment in April 2020 reached $716 million, while in April 2019 the deficit was $46 million, according to preliminary data posted by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on Friday.
According to the report, the surplus of the current account of the balance of payment last month was $1.4 billion, and in April 2019 the deficit was $92 million.
The volume of exports of goods in April 2020 decreased by 4% (in March 2020 by 3.5%), to $3.6 billion. The decline was due to a decrease in the export of wood and wood products by 19.6% (by 11.7%), ferrous and non-ferrous metals – by 18.1% (by 13.1%) and engineering products – by 8.3% (by 13.3%), as well as a drop in exports of industrial products and chemical products by 24.2% and 2.5% respectively, which a month earlier had increased by 2.3% and 16.7%.
At the same time, in April, export of food products continued to grow – by 6.6% (by 2.3%) and mineral products – by 12.1% (by 3.5%).
In January-April 2020, exports to Asian countries increased in money terms (by $796 million, or 16.9%), while exports to the EU and the Russian Federation decreased by $555 million (9.7%) and $111 million (13.6%) respectively. Thus, the share of exports to Asian countries of total exports increased to 37% (from 31.3% for the same period in 2019), and to the EU and Russia decreased to 34.6% (from 38%) and to 4.7% (from 5.4%).
In April 2020, import of goods decreased more significantly – by 28.4% (in March – by 6%), to $3.4 billion, including energy imports decreased by 33.4% (in March – by 11.5%), and non-energy – by 28.6% (in March – by 4.8%).
Last month, in particular, imports of engineering products decreased by 28.7% (in March – by 2.6%), including cars by 33.4% (in March, it increased by 21.7%). In addition, exports of ferrous and non-ferrous metals decreased by 36.8% (in March – by 8.6%), industrial products by 23% (by 7.2%) and chemical products – by 17.5% (in March it grew by 2.1%).
At the same time, food imports continued to grow – by 2.1% after rapid growth in March by 20.9%.
According to the results of January-April 2020, imports from Russia (by $924 million, or 37.5%) and from the EU countries (by $314 million, or 4.5%) decreased the most in money terms, while Russia’s share of total imports decreased to 9.2% (from 13.2% according to the results of the corresponding period of 2019), and the EU increased to 40.8% (from 38.2%). At the same time, imports from Asian countries remained almost unchanged – it grew only by $34 million (or 0.8%), and its share of total imports – to 26.3% from 23.3%.
According to the report, the surplus in trade in services in April 2020 tripled to $555 million compared to April 2019, thanks to the higher rate of decline in imports of services (by half) compared to their exports (by 17.0%) due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A decrease in imports of services occurred along with a 72.2% decrease in expenses of people traveling abroad and short-term migrants, as well as a decrease in transport and other business services by 31.3% and 41.2%, respectively.
At the same time, a decrease in the export of services was facilitated by a decrease in transport services (37.5%) and expenses of people traveling in Ukraine (95.7%), while the export of computer services continued to increase (by 21.3%).
According to the central bank, the surplus in the balance of primary income in April 2020 decreased by 10.4%, to $420 million compared to April a year earlier due to the predominance of a decrease in receipts from payroll (by $158 million) over payments on income from investments (by $120 million).
Net borrowing from the outside world (total current account balance and capital account) last month amounted to $1.4 billion, which is 93.4% less than in April 2019 ($91 million).