The World Bank has improved the forecast for Ukraine’s GDP growth in 2019 from 3.4% to 3.6%, World Bank Senior Economist Anastasia Golovach has said.
“For 2019, we do not expect any surprises and we think that Ukraine’s GDP will grow by 3.6%. A good indicator, but external risks, in some way, are increasing for Ukraine, so the structural transformation of the economy is important,” she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.
She noted that maintaining the current rate of economic growth will require an increase in capital investment, which amounted to 10% last year. This will require a greater influx of foreign direct investment.
At the same time, the bank kept forecasts of economic growth in 2020 at 3.7% of GDP, in 2021 at 4.2%, she said.
According to the banker, the deficit of the balance of payments in Ukraine in 2019 is expected to reach 3.1% of GDP, however, due to the potential loss of gas transit revenues and the unfavorable situation in the world markets, this figure will increase in 2020 and 2021 to 3.6% and 3.8% of GDP.
“But subject to rapid reforms, we expect in the next month that Ukraine will be able to maintain the economic growth rate at 3.7% in 2020 and accelerate it to 4.2% in 2021,” Golovach explained.
“An important factor in reducing pressure on the budget deficit is control over current budget expenditures and a balanced reduction in the minimum wage this year – only at the level of 12%, which is very contrasted with the previous years,” Golovach said.
Moreover, according to her, inflation will continue the downward trend: from 9.8% at the end of last year to 6.4% by the end of this year, as well as 5.5% and 5% in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
According to the bank’s expectations, in 2019 the deficit of the national budget of Ukraine will show a decrease to 2.1% in 2020 and 1.9% in 2021.
The World Bank believes that the level of public debt of Ukraine will also continue to decline this year to 51.7% of GDP. At the same time, the bank maintained the forecast for its further growth in 2020 and in 2021 to 54.6% and 55.3% of GDP respectively.
