Agriculture in Ukraine

The economy of Ukraine is an emerging, mixed economy located in Eastern Europe. It grew rapidly from 2000 until 2008 when the Great Recession began worldwide and reached Ukraine. The economy recovered in 2010 and continued improving until 2013. From 2014 to 2015, the Ukrainian economy suffered a severe downturn, with GDP in 2015 being slightly above half of its value in 2013. In 2016, the economy again started to grow. By 2018, the Ukrainian economy was growing rapidly, and reached almost 80% of its size in 2008.

The depression during the 1990s included hyperinflation and a fall in economic output to less than half of the GDP of the preceding Ukrainian SSR. GDP growth was recorded for the first time in 2000, and continued for eight years.Ukraine. Macroeconomic indicators
National Bank of Ukraine This growth was halted by the global financial crisis of 2008. The Ukrainian economy recovered and achieved positive GDP growth in the first quarter of 2010. In the early 2010s, Ukraine was noted as possessing many of the components of a major European economy: rich farmlands, a well-developed industrial base, highly trained labour, and a good education system.

In October 2013, the Ukrainian economy lapsed into a recession. The previous summer, Ukrainian exports to Russia substantially declined due to stricter border and customs control by Russia.Russia sets off trade war to prevent Ukraine from signing agreement with EU, says UDAR
''Kyiv Post''. 14 August 2013.







Does Russia Have a Secret Plan for Ukraine?
The Atlantic (21 August 2013)
Caught in a Zeitnot
, The Ukrainian Week (6 August 2013) The early 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the War in Donbas that started in the spring of 2014 severely damaged Ukraine's economy and severely damaged two of Ukraine's most industrial regions. In 2013, Ukraine saw zero GDP growth.Amid staggering destruction, eastern Ukraine looks to rebuild
Al Jazeera (28 September 2014) Ukraine's economy shrank by 6.8% in 2014,
Ukraine's Economy Contracted By 6.8 Percent In 2014
RFE/RL (20 March 2015) and this continued with a 12% decline in GDP in 2015.Ukraine conflict taking heavy toll on economy says IMF
Radio Svoboda (30 October 2015) In April 2017, the World Bank stated that Ukraine's economic growth rate was 2.3% in 2016, ending the recession.Ukraine's Economy is Recovering Modestly Despite Significant Headwinds
World Bank (4 April 2017) Despite these improvements, Ukraine remains the poorest country in Europe, which some journalists have attributed to high corruption

In April 2020, the World Bank reported that economic growth was solid at 3.2 percent in 2019, led by a good agricultural harvest and sectors dependent on domestic consumption. Household consumption grew by 11.9 percent in 2019, supported by sizable remittance inflows and a resumption of consumer lending, while domestic trade and agriculture grew by 3.4 and 1.3 percent, respectively. In 2020 GDP fell by 4.4 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country's economy could shrink up to 35%, according to the IMF.

History

Before 1917

Geography has long influenced the economy of the Ukrainian lands. Rich fertile soils (such as chernozem areas) made the area a "breadbasket": for ancient Greece as well as for early modern Europe. The maintenance of trade corridors – the route from the Varangians to the Greeks and access through the Straits to the Mediterranean world – became important. Mineral resources encouraged industrialisation – notably in the Donbas – from the 19th century onwards.

The lack of secure borders meant repeated interruptions in economic development. Steppe nomads and other conquerors – Cumans, Mongols, Tatars for example, sometimes saw plundering as more important than fostering economic development. In the 16th to 18th centuries, the wastelands of the Wild Fields left much of Ukraine as an area of tentatively militarised outposts, prior to tsarist Russia's extension of its power into the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Soviet period: 1917 to 1991

1991 to 2000

On 24 August 1991, Ukraine established its independence from the Soviet Union. The new state's economy suffered huge output declines and soaring inflation in the following years.Why is Ukraine's economy in such a mess?
The Economist (5 Mar 2014) Ukraine saw hyperinflation in the early 1990s because of a lack of access to financial markets and massive monetary expansion to finance government spending, while output declined sharply. Huge output declines and soaring inflation was at the time common to most former Soviet republics, but Ukraine was among the hardest hit by these problems.

In response to this hyperinflation the National Bank of Ukraine replaced the national currency, the karbovanets, with the hryvnia in September 1996 and pledged to keep it stable in relation to the US dollar. The currency remained unstable through the late 1990s, particularly during the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

Deep recession during the 1990s led to a relatively high poverty rate

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