Highlight: Fiscal policy - FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY RAISES CONCERNS
Politics: Ukraine tries to seek for other forms of cooperation with the Custom Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan than full membership.
Real Sector: Real GDP dropped by 1.3% yoy in the first quarter due to falling exports and investments.
Energy sector: Coal mining companies remain ineffective and survive mostly due to substantial government subsidies.
Agriculture: The Government raised minimum wholesale price for sugar and imposed the quota for sugar supply for the domestic market at 1.8 m t to prevent oversupply of sugar.
External sector: Current account deficit remained at USD 1.0 bn in March as higher trade deficit was offset by lower net payments of income.
Fiscal policy: Central fiscal deficit widened to UAH 4.5 bn in the first quarter of 2013 as compared to central fiscal surplus of UAH 1.0 bn in the same period of 2012.
Social policy: The financial situation of the Pension Fund remains difficult.
Labour market: Wages continue growing primarily due to minimum wage increase.
Monetary policy: In 2012 the NBU used refinancing and open market operations mostly for bank bailouts and quasi-fiscal operations and only to small extent for monetary policy.
Financial markets: In April the Government placed USD 1.25 bn of ten-year Eurobonds, what reduced the urgent need for the IMF loan.