Industrial manufacturers expect a decline in capacity utilization rate to 59%

Ukraine’s industrial enterprises expected a drop in capacity utilization rate to 58.8% in Q2 2020, 6.7 pp. down from the previous quarter, according to a survey of industrial enterprises conducted by the State Statistics Service. 1,501 enterprises took part in the survey.

Ukrainian industrial enterprises, interviewed by the State Statistics Service, stress a growing influence of constraints, including insufficient demand.

“The current volume or foreign orders in industry is minus 30%, in processing industry minus 36%,” explains the State Statistics Service.

At the same time, the impact of such factors as lack of labor force, raw material, materials and equipment on industry is expected to lessen.

In general, in Q2 2020, the business confidence index in industry fell by 17.3 pp. to minus 23.3% compared to Q1 2020.

In the processing industry, this index decreased by 17.8 pp. to minus 24.6% compared to the previous quarter.

As reported earlier, industrial producers in Ukraine expected a drop in capacity utilization rate to 61.6% in Q1 2020, 3.9 pp. down from Q4 2019.

In 2019, industrial production in Ukraine declined by 1.8% against 2018. Importantly, a steady downward trend was recorded from June to December last year.

As a result, Ukraine’s GDP growth rate slowed down to 3.3% in 2019 (from 3.4% in 2018).