According to the results of the year, the economy of Ukraine comes out with worse economic results than planned. Lower results According to the government's plans, Ukraine's GDP growth this year was estimated at 3%. The reality was less optimistic, annual GDP is likely to grow by 2-2.5%. Expectations that this year inflation will fall to a clear level, also failed to materialize. According to the results of the year, the inflation rate will be 13-14%, with the initial annual forecast of 8%. Also in 2017, for the first time in several years, there was a decline in the index of investment attractiveness of our country. The flow of foreign direct investment in the current year continues to decline. For 11 months, Ukraine received $ 1.6 billion. investment, which is 2 times less than in the previous year. Over the 10 months of this year, the negative balance of foreign trade in goods increased 2.2 times compared with the previous year, and amounted to 4.6 billion dollars. Why did not live up to expectations It should be noted that economic growth of 2% for our country signals more blunders in the economic strategy than successes in the economy. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), world GDP growth in 2017 will be 3.6%. In 2018, the world economy is expected to accelerate to 3.8-4%. Thus, despite the fact that this year the GDP growth in Ukraine has increased, we continue to lag behind in economic development both from the world level and from neighboring countries. Thus, according to the forecasts of the IMF, economic growth in Romania in 2017 will be 5.5%, in Poland - 4.5%, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia - 3.5%. According to the director of the International Bleyzer Foundation Oleg Ustenko, without real reforms, it will be difficult to ensure a significant acceleration of economic growth on the existing economic base. Government's plans to achieve a 4% economic growth can be achieved subject to structural reforms, and creating more attractive conditions for business and entrepreneurship than in neighboring countries. The World Bank in its report criticized the inefficiency of the reforms in Ukraine, and worsened the forecast of economic growth in 2018 to 3%. Thus, next year our country will continue to lag behind most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the world economy as a whole. The economy of Ukraine in 2014-2015 has decreased by 17%. Therefore, in order to win back the GDP decline as soon as possible, it is necessary to ensure a much larger economic growth in the country, says Oleg Ustenko. In the situation in which Ukraine is located, for economic recovery, GDP growth of 5% or more is necessary. Ukraine continues to be one of the poorest countries in Europe. To overcome poverty, rapid and sustained economic growth is also needed. What reserves can accelerate economic growth? In the opinion of ex-Minister of Economy Victor Suslov, the increase in prices on world commodity markets will promote the growth of Ukrainian exports and the country's GDP. At the moment, the raw material specialization of our country in foreign trade. Ukraine is a major supplier of agricultural raw materials, raw ferrous metals, chemical products to world markets. Economic growth in the world increases the demand for products of Ukrainian raw materials exports. The increase in demand raises commodity prices, so we can expect that Ukraine's revenues from exports will increase and this will have a positive impact on our economy, comments Viktor Suslov. The difficulty for the Ukrainian economy is that the decline in demand in world raw materials markets leads to a drop in the level of our exports and total revenues of exporters. As a result, the decline in economic growth and the level of foreign exchange earnings to Ukraine. Countries exporting high-technology goods and services are less susceptible to cyclical fluctuations in the world economy and have a higher level of value added of their products. What allows them to earn more and less depend on economic cycles. Therefore, our country needs to focus not on the raw material model, but on the production and export of high-tech products, goods and services with a high level of added value. To do this, it will be necessary to improve the quality of the business climate in the country and move to a model for investment growth, which will allow for a more dynamic development of the economy, Oleg Ustenko believes.. In his opinion, in order to accelerate the growth of GDP, it is necessary to abandon the policy of targeting the export of goods with low added value. According to Victor Suslov, to accelerate economic growth, it is necessary to increase domestic purchasing demand and limit the government's influence on business. This will require access to loans for business, a decrease in administrative and tax pressure from the state to entrepreneurs, and long-term growth in household incomes as a condition for increasing domestic demand in the country. A look into the future. Year 2018 Serious grounds to think that next year will be the year of economic breakthrough, yet. If the policy of populism and inflation of state revenues continues, this may have an additional negative impact on the economy. The risk may be a drop in demand and prices in world raw materials markets, which could negatively affect the exporters' earnings, foreign exchange earnings and the hryvnia exchange rate. In the budget for the next year, the government expects an economic growth of 3%, an inflation rate of 7%, an average annual rate of 29.3 hryvnia per dollar. According to the forecast of experts of the investment company ICU, in the absence of reforms, GDP growth next year could reach 2.3-2.8%, a strict monetary policy will continue to reduce the money supply, the average annual exchange rate will be about 29 UAH / USD. Taking into account that the increase in prices for goods and services is likely to continue next year, including due to the depreciation of the hryvnia, this will have a negative impact on inflation.

Therefore, the real indicator of inflation in 2018 may be significantly higher than the planned. Just like it was in 2017. Based on the macroeconomic indicators proposed by the government, it can be concluded that in the near future no special changes are expected from the point of view of economic transformations. And if so - about the economic breakthrough while talking early. Sergey Savenko.

Original article: Economy in 2017. Running with obstacles or in place?.