output of the next-ranking
republic. Its fertile black soil generated more than one-fourth of
Soviet agricultural output, and its farms provided substantial
quantities of meat, milk, grain, and vegetables to other republics.
Likewise, its diversified heavy industry supplied equipment and raw
materials to industrial and mining sites in other regions of the
former USSR. In early 1992, the Ukrainian government liberalized most
prices and erected a legal framework for privatization, but widespread
resistance to reform within the government and the legislature soon
stalled reform efforts and led to some backtracking. Loose monetary
and fiscal policies pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels in
late 1993. Greater monetary and fiscal restraint lowered inflation in
1994, but also contributed to an accelerated decline in industrial
output. Since his election in July 1994, President KUCHMA has
developed - and parliament has approved - a comprehensive economic
reform program, maintained financial discipline, and reduced state
controls over prices, the exchange rate, and foreign trade.
Implementation of KUCHMA's economic agenda will encounter considerable
resistance from parliament, entrenched bureaucrats, and industrial
interests and will contribute to further declines in output and rising
unemployment which will sorely test the government's ability to stay
the course on reform in 1995.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $189.2 billion (1994
estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1992)

National product real growth rate: -19% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $3,650 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 14% per month (1994)

Unemployment rate: 0.4% officially registered; large number of
unregistered or underemployed workers

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Exports: $11.8 billion (1994)
commodities: coal, electric power, ferrous and nonferrous metals,
chemicals, machinery and transport equipment, grain, meat
partners: FSU countries, China, Italy, Switzerland

Imports: $14.2 billion (1994)
commodities: energy, machinery and parts, transportation equipment,
chemicals, textiles
partners: FSU countries, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic

External debt: $7.5 billion (yearend 1994)

Industrial production: growth rate -28% (1994 est.); accounts for 50%
of GDP

Electricity:
capaci