Poland has overtaken Russia, becoming one of the three largest trade partners of Ukraine in the world. At the end of 2020, the total trade turnover between the countries amounted to $7.36 billion.
As the Adviser and the Head of the Department for Economic Affairs the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Poland, Ihor Baranetsky, said in a comment to the agency Ukrinform, Poland has become one position higher, losing first and second places to China and Germany (less by $48 million), respectively.
"This figure [$7.36 billion—ed. ] is almost the same as in 2019: the decrease in mutual trade turnover is only 0.58%. This shows that we have saved our trade with Poland, despite a difficult "covid" year. Our ambitious goal is to achieve the volume of bilateral trade with Poland at $10 billion. This is possible in 2-3 years, and I hope that we will be able to do this," Baranetsky said.
According to the official, the country remains the second largest market for Ukrainian exports in the world, because our country exported $3.3 billion to Poland in 2020, showing a decrease of only 0.7% in the year of the crisis. Ukraine exports to Poland more agricultural products (28.3%), metallurgy (18%), mineral products (17.4%), woodworking products (9.9%), and electromechanical industry (7.7%).
Baranetsky also added that now Ukraine is in the top 10 of Poland's trade partners, and it is important that it be included in the top 10. And that would attract more attention of Polish business in Ukraine, because now the country underestimates Ukraine's capabilities.
According to the State Statistics Service, last year the volume of imports of Russian goods to Ukraine decreased by 35%—to $4.5 billion, if compared with 2019. At the same time, the export of Ukrainian goods to Russia decreased by 16.6%—to $2.7 billion.
The Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine Taras Kachka clarified on his Facebook page that imports of goods from the CIS countries to Ukraine fell by 29% in 2020 when compared with the previous year.
"In general, the once dominant CIS in our trade has 15.6% in the structure of Ukrainian imports, and the Russian Federation—8.4%. Thanks to the increase of Ukrainian exports by 98%, China occupies a larger share in the structure of our trade than all CIS countries," he noted, adding that now the most trade partner of Ukraine is the European Union, accounting for 40.7% of Ukraine's trade turnover.
At the same time, the share of the United States in Ukraine's trade turnover is -3.8% of total trade, 2% of exports and 5.5% of imports (as in 2019), and trade turnover with Turkey increased by 0.2 percentage points, accounting for 4.7% of the total volume.
Context. Earlier, reported that in January-August 2020, Ukraine's foreign trade turnover amounted to $64.25 billion, and that is 9.7% less than in 8 months of 2019.