Deficit of Ukraine's foreign trade in goods in first two months shrinks by 7.8%

he deficit of Ukraine's foreign trade in commodities January through February 2010 was estimated at $656.3 million, which was 7.8% down on the same period of 2009, the State Statistics Committee reported on Monday. The export of goods from Ukraine in the first two months grew by 24.7%, to $6.396 billion, while the import of goods rose by 20.7%, to $7.053 billion.

The committee said that the ratio of the coverage of imports by exports over the period under review increased to 0.91 compared to 0.88 in the same period last year.

The committee said that the export of goods from Ukraine in February 2010 alone rose by 25.7% from February 2009, to $3.385 billion, while the import of goods fell by 1.9%, to $3.727 billion, which is connected with the fact that gas payments last year varied widely.

In the end, the deficit of foreign trade in commodities in February plunged by 3.2 times, to $341.3 million.

As the committee said, the largest consignments of goods January through February were exported to Russia (24.1% of overall exports), Turkey (6.4%), Italy (3.8%), Germany, Belarus, and India (3.4% each), and Poland (3%).

The largest consignments of goods in the first two months were imported from Russia (39.7%), China (7.6%), Germany (6.9%), Poland (3.9%), Belarus (3%), Italy (2.8%), and Azerbaijan (2.6%).