Export and import activities of Ukraine

Abstract

Background. Modern foreign economic transformation marked by the deepening of the process of Ukraine’s integration into the European community, which requires a faster overcoming of lagging of the country’s development in economic, legal and social spheres, as well as the increasing of the population welfare. The armed conflict in the East of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, the change of the political elite in power in state has resulted in significant changes in the foreign economic activity of the country, in particular the dramatic changes in the geographical and commodity structure of export-import operations, which in turn affected the change in growth efficiency of the national economy and directly the income from foreign trade.
The aim of the article lies in the analysis of foreign economic activity of Ukraine on the modern stage of international relations development, the study of key variables trends in the geographical and commodity structure of foreign trade of Ukraine, clarifying the causes and consequences of these processes.
Materials and methods. The main materials of the study became scientific works on the problems of foreign trade of Ukraine, newsletters and reports of the State statistics service, Ministry of economic development and trade, the National Institute for strategic studies. During the study there were used methods of economic and statistical analysis, methods of comparison and grouping, graphical simulation of economic processes.
Results. Now the main foreign economic and political priority and the basis of economic-legal, socio-cultural and political development of Ukraine is European integration. In the article the author investigates the current trends of foreign economic activity of Ukraine in the conditions of reorientation to the EU market and aggravation of political and trade relations with the Russian Federation, analyzes the dynamics and nature of changes in the indices of export-import activity in the country, identifies the main transformation in the geographical and commodity structure of international trade during 2015, clarifies the main causes of these processes.
Conclusion. The analysis of foreign economic activities of Ukraine gave the possibility to identify the main problems of development of international economic relations of Ukraine in modern conditions, taking into account changes in the political vector. The main factors that influenced such displacements in geographical and commodity structure, can be considered: the loss of economic ties between enterprises of Ukraine and economic entities of the zone ATO; the destruction of production and transport infrastructure; weak external demand; the restriction of access to the Russian market; the fall of world prices for key commodity markets; low solvency of the population and the financial difficulties of enterprises against the background of rising production costs. Further studies are advisable to direct to the development of effective mechanisms of export potential reproduction of Ukraine's economy, the rationalization of the structure of foreign trade in the new conditions of foreign policy development.