Macroeconomic situation in Ukraine deteriorated in the first half of the year. At the beginning of 2025, it was clear that the Ukrainian economy lacked growth factors that existed in 2023-2024. This is stated in the analysis GMK Center , reported Dengi.ua .
It is noted that approximately from the beginning of the second quarter of last year completely exhausted the effect of economic recovery after 2022 and, as a consequence, the low base of comparison, which in 2023 provided record economic growth.
"In other words, the Ukrainian economy has reached the ceiling of growth and is not able to go into the "plus" without additional positive structural factors. According to the results of the first half of 2025, we can state that some of the important Ukrainian macro indicators have gone down," the report says.
During the first half of this year, business faces the same challenges as in 2024:
- rising tariffs for energy and gas supply, as well as the threat of increased cost of railroad freight transportation;
- increase in production costs due to rising energy prices and devaluation of the hryvnia;
- increased staff shortages;
- increased pressure of law enforcement agencies on business;
- insufficient business lending.
Analysts believe that the growth of the above problems has led to the deterioration of the economic situation. The first characteristics of the Ukrainian economy since the beginning of the year show the failure of the most important economic indicators.
Industrial production has fallen since the beginning of the year. This indicator in January-April decreased by 6.1% y/y after growth by 3.6% y/y in 2024. The volume of construction also declined. In Q1, the volume of completed construction works fell by 11% y/y. This was due to a significant decline in residential (-7.4% y/y) and engineering (-26.6% y/y) construction.
"To this we can add the negative impact of external factors, for example: lower prices for a number of Ukrainian export products due to tariff wars and high uncertainty in the global economy. As a result, in Q1 2025, the size of Ukrainian exports in monetary terms decreased by 7.4% YoY or by $786 mln - to $9.9 bln," the analysts added.
They expect that the growth rate of the Ukrainian economy in the current year will be in the range of 2-3.3%, which is not enough for recovery.
