Ukraine in January-March 2018 increased goods flow with the European Union (EU) countries by 17.7% year-over-year, to $8.581 billion, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has said on its website. The central bank said that both exports grew by 26.5%, to $4.058 billion and imports rose by 10.7%, to $4.523 billion. The deficit of balance of trade with the EU narrowed to $465 million from $878 million.
In addition, goods flow with Russia grew by 14.9%, to $2.615 billion. Imports rose by 28.4%, to $1.906 billion, while exports fell by 10.1%, to $0.709 billion. The deficit of balance of trade with Russia grew to $1.197 billion from $692 million.
The share of goods flow between Ukraine and the EU of total Ukraine’s foreign trade in January-March 2018 grew to 37.7% from 35.3% and with Russia to 11.5% from 11%.
In general, exports of goods from Ukraine in January-March 2018 grew by 10.4%, to $22.782 billion, imports – by 11.9%, to $12.359 billion and exports – by 8.6%, to 410.423 billion.
EU, GOODS FLOW, GROWS, RUSSIA, TRADE
Ukraine and Israel have technically initiated an agreement on the free trade area (FTA), Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska has said. “This is a technical but important procedural issue that enables us to conduct legal reconciliation of the text of the agreement for further translation it into three languages and prepare the agreement for signing,” she wrote in the Facebook social network on Friday. Mykolska said that before signing the agreement, the parties have no legal obligations.
As reported, Ukraine and Israel completed talks on the signing of the FTA agreement. The agreement foresees the annulment of import duties for 80% of industrial goods from Ukraine to Israel and some agricultural products within quotas. There will be a gradual cancellation of import duties during the transitional periods – three, five and seven years. After these terms end, the duties will be leveled to nil. A certain category of goods falls under partial liberalization.
In turn, Ukraine opens 70% of the industrial goods market for Israeli producers and also abolishes duties on a number of agricultural products immediately after the FTA agreement enters into force, for some products – within three or five years. In particular, Ukraine will partially reduce tariffs for certain seasonal vegetables and fruits from Israel.
Growth of goods flow between Ukraine and Belarus was 15-16% in January 2018, Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Ihor Kizim has said.
“Our good flow is growing. Now we would reach $4.5 billion and even more… in January 2018, we saw 15-16% growth,” he told Interfax-Ukraine in Kyi v on Tuesday.
Kizim said that in 2017, the figure was 18%.
“We see the upward trend in the past two years after a decline in 2014 and 2015,” the diplomat said, reminding that in 2012-2013 goods flow between Ukraine and Belarus was $8 billion.
Trade between Ukraine and India in 2017 grew by 18.8%, reaching $2.8 billion, Indian Ambassador to Ukraine Mr. Manoj Kumar Bharti said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. “Here two important moments should be pointed out. India became the fifth country in the volume of the export from Ukraine abroad. In addition, India is the second country with which Ukraine has the surplus in trade. Only Ukraine and Egypt have bigger surplus in trade – $1.75 billion, while between Ukraine and India it is $1.65 billion,” he said.
The ambassador said that these indicators fuel confidence that the growth of trade turnover in 2018-2019 could be 20% and 25%, respectively.
Commenting on trade relations between the countries, he said that India was the first country in terms of export of Ukrainian sunflower oil. Last year India exported $2 billion worth of oil. In addition, in 2017, for the first time, a lot of beans were exported from Ukraine to India.
“Another very important factor is that the largest share of the total number of foreign students in Ukraine last year was made up of Indian students, a figure we reached for the first time in 15 years,” the Indian diplomat said.
So, according to him, today more than 10,800 Indian students are studying in Ukraine, which is 80% more than in 2015.
“I am pleased to say that in almost two years we have increased the number of Indian students from 6,000 to almost 11,000. Taking into account the fact that each Indian student spends about $5,000 a year for education, living and personal expenses, Ukraine already earns $55 million only through the provision of education to Indian students,” he said.
The ambassador said that India plans to increase the number of its citizens studying in Ukrainian universities to 40,000 in the coming years, which in turn will give Ukraine about $200 million a year.
He also said that the inclusion of India in the list of countries, which citizens receive the Ukrainian visa upon their arrival to the airport, had a positive impact on the tourist flow. The number of Indian citizens, who visited Ukraine last year, increased more than 50%, to 29,400 people.
