Ukrainian banks during the crisis

About the debt of the Ukrainian banking sector to creditors:

Першим банком, що оголосив дефолт за зобов'язаннями, став банк "Фінанси та Кредит", який у березні 2009 року не зумів повністю розрахуватися за синдикованою позикою у розмірі 70 мільйонів доларів, організаторами якої були Standard Bank, Raiffeisen Zentralbank та "Банк ВТБ".

Governance matters 2009 is out

Comparison of governance indicators for Ukraine in 1996, 2004, and 2008 are quite as I expected.

Voice and accountability is the area where Ukraine is quite advanced and the major improvement happened after 2004. Actually, I think that it should be above the median in 2008.

Rule of law and control of corruption are the weakest links. The rule of law has not improved since 1996 -- I agree on that. I would say that it did actually deteriorated since 2004.

What is surprising is the level of political stability in Ukraine. I would disagree that there is political stability at the level close to the median country. I would also disagree that it improved since 2004. It is quite shaky over here.

First quarter GDP is finally announced!

Probably the Ukrainian Statistical Commettee could not take it any longer and finally announced the 1st quarter GDP. So, here it goes:

Ukraine experienced a 20.3% decline in GDP relative to the first quarter of 2008. It is a record drop among all European countries and very likely the absolute record worldwide.

It all came despite goods reults in agriculture. I wonder how would it look like if we had a poor weather last Fall.

Construction industry just collapsed with 54% drop and manufacturing followed with 36% drop.