Ukraine’s Industrial Agony Continues In December

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Ukraine’s industrial output continued its rapid decline in December, falling for a fifth consecutive month, led by steel, chemical and machine building. Output tumbled an annual 26.6 percent, following a 28.6 year on year decline in November, and a 19.8% one in October.

December steel production slumped 42.7 percent, chemical output fell 40 percent, and machine building dropped 37.1 percent. The annual contraction rate slowed slightly in December, but this may be a statistical artefact due to what is know as the “low base effect” in December 2007, since output almost certainly fell in December over November, and we can expect it to continue to fall in the coming months (Update Friday: actually my initial guesstimate was wrong. They just published the data on the stats office website, and output was up 3.2% on December over November. This could be a result of increased exports due to the sharp drop in the value of the hryvnia, but it is too early to say at this point. To be followed closely).

For a full analysis of what is happening in Ukraine, see my As The Politicians Battle It Out Ukraine’s Economy Tunnels South In Search Of Australia

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About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

One thought on “Ukraine’s Industrial Agony Continues In December”

  1. Doug, do you really understand that Ukraine is “survivalist black box”, with commodities and labor export (which is the only thing which should concern Western economies), and no conventional economic analysis is applicable to the country?

    I mean, when world economy is on the rise, Ukraine is moving fast out of the shithole. In time of recession Ukraine defaults to the survivalist mode. Thanks to nuclear power and vastly superior energy infrastructure over what we have in the West (Europe or even more in US/Canada), even at the time of severe steel/commodities downturn Ukraine is doing just … surviving.

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