Exports from Ukraine to Russia in H1 2016 shrank by 34% year-over-year, and it plunged by 80% in the past five years, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.
“The Russia’s share of Ukrainian exports is only 9% now with the further downward trend,” he said in his annual address to the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday.
The president assessed the loss from this discriminative policy and attempts to suffocate Ukraine at $15 billion.
“They thought they would bring us down to marrowbones. This did not happen and this would not happen. We are looking for new market and find them,” he said.
Poroshenko said that the main alternative to the Russian market is the EU market. Exports to the EU grew by 7%, and its share of total exports reached 39.2%, while several years ago the Russia’s share was around one third.
The president added that Ukraine is actively opening eastern markets.
According to the State Statistics Service, exports of goods and services from Ukraine decreased by 9.2% in January-June 2016, to $20.16 billion, while imports – by 5.8%, to $19.59 billion. Exports to the CIS countries fell by 21.2%, to $4.27 billion and other countries – by 5.5%, to $16.34 billion, while it grew by 4.9% to the EU, to $7.61 billion.
Imports from the CIS states fell by 28.3%, to $3.89 billion, while from other countries it grew by 2.1%, to $15.7 billion, including by 0.5% from the EU, to $8.68 billion.
