The Ukrainian economy is an economy in growth, which is driven by a very favourable agricultural sector, exports of steel and domestic consumption. The market volume is 45 million consumers and is relatively free of competitors and full of free niches. Therefore, the local economy is extremely flexible and provides a lot of opportunities for foreign businesses. Currently, the country's gross domestic product is an estimated 81.4 billion. Low competition in many industrial and nonindustrial fields. Despite Ukraine covering about 20 major industries, namely power generating, fuel, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical and petrochemical and gas, machine-building and metal-working, forest, wood-working, and wood pulp and paper, construction materials, light, food, and others there is still low competition in many industrial and nonindustrial fields. Ukraine offers a large and especially profitable market space for any commercial articles or intentions.
Huge natural resources. Significant natural resource of highly arable land. Ukraine has 33 % of the world total resource fertile soil composed of (chernozems) which makes the agrarian sector very perspective and profitable. Also, huge resources, abundance, and variety of minerals easily exceed even the resources of the world biggest countries. More than 20,000 deposits and manifestations of 200 different minerals have been discovered in Ukraine. Of these, about 8 000 deposits of 94 types of minerals are of industrial importance. Ukraine’s main natural resources include iron ore, coal, manganese ore, natural gas, petroleum, sulfur, graphite, titanium ore, magnesium, uranium, chromium, nickel, aluminum, copper, zinc, lead, rare earth metals, potassium, rock salt and kaolinite, as well as mineral waters and others. The deposits are located in different regions of Ukraine.
Ukraine is close to the key markets thankful its advantageous strategic position between Europe and Asia. Four Pan-European corridors run across the country. Ukraine which is considered the 44th world largest country forms a good commercial crossroads on the very busy route: Europe – Central Asia - the Middle East. That makes Ukraine a hub where a lot of different trade routes coexist. Moreover, Ukraine has a robust infrastructure for sustaining an export-oriented economy – close to 170,000 km of roadways, some 22,000 km of railways, access to the Black Sea and several ports that can service large vessels. Delivering goods in two days to European hubs versus a shipping container travelling from Asia over 40 days is an unbeatable advantage. Ukraine has also several frontiers with EU states Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and with non-EU states: Moldova.
Low-Cost Production Platform close to EU. Significant cost savings for wages, energies and raw materials. The devaluation of the Ukrainian national currency (hryvnia) changed Ukraine into one of the most competitive low-cost production platforms globally. Tariffs prices for gas, power or gasoline are notably lower than in any other EU state. Based on current tariffs, electricity prices for industrial enterprises are much lower in Ukraine than neighbouring Poland (-25%), Czech Republic (-25%) or Slovakia (-37%). Significant cost savings for production are made Ukraine a very competitive and preferable place in selecting a manufacturing platform. Labor, raw materials and other production costs have declined significantly in U.S. dollar terms. In particular, labour-intensive industries such as food and agribusiness, light manufacturing and small machinery-building are benefiting the most. Many European companies in textile, automotive, FMCG and home appliances are producing goods in Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of the most educated nations in the world and ranked 4th country in the number of University graduated people globally. Over 99.7% of Ukrainians are literate and over 70% have a secondary or higher education. University degree and specialization within the field is considered as a base in the country. The country has more than 600 higher educational institutions, colleges, and technical schools. The largest Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, and Lviv, are educational hubs. Six Ukrainian universities are listed in the international ranking “QS World University Rankings”, in particular, the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. Each year Ukraine gives the world about 640,000 graduates, 130,000 of them are engineers and 16,000 are IT, specialists. Also each year approximately 70 000 foreign students from the 150 countries studying in the Ukrainian higher educational institutions.
Unlocked the European market for Ukrainian exporters as currently, the EU continues to apply its preferential trade regime for Ukrainian goods: for example, 83% of agricultural goods are imported duty-free to the EU. It is anticipated that exports will increase further given the large 500 million consumers EU market and the fact that major destinations in Europe may be reached within two track days. Implementation of the free trade zone with the EU encouraged Ukrainian businesses to expand exports to the region. The share of exports to the EU increased from 26% in 2012 to 35% in 2018 to date, with agricultural products and metals driving this growth. Automotive components are now the #1 export category to Germany. Future growth potential is great as per capita Ukraine exports remain low at $1,540 per year versus $4,956 in Poland and $6,605 for the sixteen CEE countries.