Ukraine’s trade surplus in ferrous metals and products made from them in January–July 2026 fell by approximately 40% compared to the same period last year—to approximately $465 million.
The calculation is based on data from the State Customs Service of Ukraine.
Over the first seven months, Ukraine exported $1.678 billion worth of ferrous metals and an additional $507.5 million worth of metal products. Total export revenue for these two groups amounted to approximately $2.185 billion.
At the same time, imports of ferrous metals reached $1.023 billion, while imports of ferrous metal products amounted to $697.6 million. Thus, total imports amounted to approximately $1.720 billion.
The difference between exports and imports narrowed to approximately $465 million.
For comparison: based on the annual trends published by the State Customs Service, in January–July 2025, total exports of these two commodity groups amounted to approximately $2.385 billion, imports to approximately $1.612 billion, and the trade surplus to approximately $773 million.
Thus, the annual trade surplus decreased by approximately $308 million, or nearly 40%.
The main reason for this decline is the opposing trends in export and import flows. Total exports of ferrous metals and metal products over the seven-month period decreased by approximately 8.4%, while imports of these goods increased by approximately 6.7%.
The imbalance is particularly noticeable in the metal products segment: exports here totaled $507.5 million, while imports amounted to $697.6 million, resulting in a trade deficit of about $190 million.
Ferrous metals are currently offsetting this deficit: their exports exceed imports by approximately $655 million. However, at the same time, foreign exchange proceeds from their exports fell by 7.6%, while imports rose by 7.2%.
This trend indicates a noticeable decrease in the positive contribution of metallurgical products to Ukraine’s foreign trade balance in 2026.
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).
The surplus of Ukraine’s foreign trade in services in the first quarter of 2020 decreased by 2.9% compared to the same period in 2019, to $1.446 billion against $1.489 billion respectively, the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to its data, export of services in January-March 2020 decreased by 1.8%, to $2.825 billion, imports by 0.7%, to $1.379 billion.
The ratio of coverage of import by export amounted to 2.05 (in the first quarter of 2019 some 2.07).
Foreign trade operations were carried out with partners from 206 countries of the world.
Top 20 countries Ukraine has posted the highest surplus of trade in goods in Jan-Sept 2019
The surplus of Ukraine’s foreign trade in services in January-June 2019 increased by 13.3% compared with January-June 2018, to $2.937 billion ($2.593 billion in H1 2018), the State Statistics Service has reported. Exports of services in January-June 2019 grew by 7.6%, to $5.897 billion, while imports of services rose by 2.5%, to $2.96 billion.
The ratio of coverage of imports by exports was 1.99 in January-June 2019 (1.9 in H1 2018).
Foreign trade operations in the service sector were carried out with partners from 226 countries.
