National Bank estimate: Ukraine GDP down 20 percent in January

“The decline in GDP in January was about 20 percentaccording to my reckoning. It’s the biggest drop ever. It’s a bad start,” he said.

The construction sector and industry have been the hardest hit by the economic crisis, he said.

“Industry has declined for the sixth month in a row. The 16.1 percentdecline in January compared to December 2008 was the biggest decrease since January 1994, when there was an 18.6 percentdrop,” Lytvytsky said.

Industrial production in January was 34.1 percentbelow the level in January 2008. The year-on-year decline in construction increased ten-fold to 57.6 percent, he said.

“At the start of last year there was one sector in recession – construction. All the rest were in positive territory. Now only one economic sector is growing – agriculture – with growth of 0.5 percent, within the margin of error. All the other basic industries, which account for about 80 percentof GDP, are contracting,” he said.

The State Statistics Committee will not be publishing monthly GDP results for January in line with the switch to international-standard, quarterly reporting. However, it will continue publishing monthly results for individual economic sectors – agriculture, industry, construction and transportation.