Ukraine’s foreign trade: responses to global challenges

Abstract

The overview of the country’s trade with all the continents during the period of 2000-2019 is given. The description of the commodity structure of exports/imports of goods, with particular attention to the industrial products, is followed by the detailed analysis of Ukraine’s foreign trade in 2020. The decrease in Ukraine’s foreign trade in 2020 by 6.4% is fully consistent with the projected WTO reduction of world trade in 2020 by 9.2%. Although COVID-19 had negative impact on Ukraine’s trade with the EU and the EAEU, it contributed to closer trade ties with Asia, improving Ukraine’s trade balance. The government and the national business elite should aim at solving the problems of increasing the volume and improving the commodity structure of Ukraine’s foreign trade with emphasis on the development of transport system for exporting agricultural and food products to the developed countries of the West and to the prospective economies of the East and the South. It is essential, on the one hand, to focus on the inflows of FDI and their appropriate use, and, on the other hand, on Ukraine’s participation in the formation of GVCs, global production networks. In the conditions of the Fourth industrial revolution, the economy finds itself transformed due to the fundamental changes. The optimization of foreign trade relations of Ukraine will not only improve the economy, but also enable the country to become a better functioning element of the global economic system.