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Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2015 dropped by 17.5% compared to the same period in 2014 – this is an unprecedented and huge economic slump which proves that the government is not taking real actions or implementing a general anti-crisis strategy, President of the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (ULIE) Anatoliy Kinakh has said.
He stressed that this fact again confirmed the applicability of the opinions outlined by the business community and experts of the Anti-Crisis Program of Joint Actions of the Government and Businesses, which has been sent for consideration to the president, the government, and the parliament.
"Certainly, the war in eastern Ukraine and the collapse of the industrial infrastructure there negatively influenced all of these indices, however, these figures also show the nationwide tendency. So, as this is proposed in our Anti-Crisis Program of Joint Actions of the Government and Businesses, it is very important for the parliament, the government, and independent experts to hold a highly professional and depoliticized dialogue in order to consider the reasons for the deepening of the socio-economic and industrial crisis and elaborate an adequate action plan, which has been proposed numerous times to the legislative and executive branches of government by businessmen and experts," the ULIE president said.
First of all, access to the country's credit resources has to be facilitated; a package of measures including import substitution and local manufacturing content has to be developed and implemented in order to intensify and increase the payment capacity of the domestic market; as well as small- and medium-sized businesses should be provided with overall support.
"A clear export policy is very important under conditions of lowering activity on the domestic market. So far the government is not demonstrating success in this sphere too – exports in Q1, 2015, dropped by 32% year-over-year, while our domestic retail trade dropped by almost 30% over this period. This means that our home market is paralyzed and the amount of our goods sold abroad is progressively smaller. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine have to take joint systemic actions concerning the monetary and exchange rate policy. Our social policy should be focused on the prevention of further decline in the buying capacity of our citizens," Kinakh said.
We should realize that it is very difficult for economically insolvent countries to win political, military, and other confrontations – this fact has been confirmed by global experience numerous times. Economic victories are as important as victories on battlefields, the ULIE president stressed.