While international financial organizations have been warning about a global economic slowdown and revising growth forecasts downwards, Ukraine has been among the few economies for which forecasts were revised upward recently.
The World Bank (WB) now expects that Ukraine will grow by 3.4 percent this year, which is more optimistic than the WB’s 2.7 percent growth forecast from June. The WB improved its forecasts also for 2020 (to 3.7 percent) and for 2021 (4.2 percent) (Worldbank.org, October 9).
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) most recently predicted that the Ukrainian economy would grow by 3 percent this year – an upward revision from April, when the IMF predicted growth of 2.7 percent. For comparison, the IMF’s 2019 GDP growth forecasts for Ukraine’s former Soviet neighbors Russia and Belarus were revised downward, to 1.1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively (Imf.org, October 24).