Industrial production in Ukraine decreases 2.9% in H1 - Gosstat

MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - Industrial production in Ukraine in H1 2023 decreased 2.9%, Ukrainian media reported citing the Gosstat State Statistics Service.

Gosstat said that an increase in industrial production has been recorded since March of this year. After a jump of 51.2% in March, the recovery slowed to 18.2% in April, 17.9% in May and 13.7% in June. However, declines in January and February 2023 of 40% and 34.4%, respectively, led to a generally negative result for the first half of the year.

Industrial production decreased 31.9% in H1 last year, the service said.

Gosstat recorded the largest decrease, 11.4% in the supply of electricity, gas and steam in H1 2023, while the mining industry saw a 9.2% decrease. The production of metal ores fell the most, at 28.7%, while oil and gas dropped only 2.7%, and a slight increase of 0.8% was even recorded in coal production.

Production in the processing industry increased 3.1%. This figure was ensured by the production of motor vehicles, which increased 29.9%, Mechanical engineering increased 12.9%, the food industry was up 12.1%, furniture production rose 11.6%, and rubber and plastic products were up 6.5%. The greatest decline, 51.4%, was in the production of coke and petroleum products, followed by metallurgy at 20.9%.

The State Statistics Service shows that the volume of sales in industrial products (goods, services) in H1 reached UAH 1.549.66 trillion, which is 6.5% more than in the previous year, including sales outside the country of UAH 282.363 billion.

The largest share in industrial products sales in H1 2023 belongs to the processing industry (56.2%), followed by the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning (31.3%).

As reported, industrial production in Ukraine fell 36.9% in 2022, while in 2021 it increased 1.9%.

The official exchange rate as of September 25 is 36.57 UAH/$1.