Economy Ministry estimates Ukraine's GDP growth at 3.6% over 2M 2024 Y-o-Y

MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax) - The real growth of Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) reached 3.6% for the first two months of 2024 year-on-year, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Sviridenko said in her estimate.

"The economy continues to demonstrate a recovering growth. In January-February, we estimate the GDP growth at 3.6% compared to the same period last year," Ukrainian media reported, quoting her as saying on social media.

Several factors contributed to this, in particular, investment demand, favorable weather conditions for construction work, agricultural product exports, expansion of production capacity in the extractive industry and stability in the energy sector, Sviridenko said.

"Due to positive indicators in key sectors of the economy, we are expecting a sustainable growth at the end of the entire first quarter," Sviridenko said.

Ukrainian Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting earlier estimated the GDP growth in February at 5.6% compared to 3.1% in January, partly attributing the acceleration to the calendar factor (leap year), as well as to better maritime logistics and fewer problems with access to electricity.

As reported, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in January estimated the country's GDP growth in 2023 at 5.7% and maintained its 2024 growth forecast at 3.6%, slightly downgrading it for 2025 from 6.0% to 5.8%. At the same time, the NBU improved its GDP growth forecast for the first quarter of this year to 7.1% from 5.4%, expecting it to slow down to 4.8% in the second quarter.

When approving the draft state budget for the second reading in early November 2023, Ukrainian government improved its GDP growth estimate for last year from 2.8% to 5%, but downgraded it for 2024 from 5% to 4.6%.