ECONOMY MINISTRY DELIVERS AN OPTIMISTIC, BUT MATHEMATICALLY WRONG FORECAST

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28.07.10

Deputy Minister of Economy Valeriy Muntiyan, at the end of the previous week, held a briefing on foreign trade, at which he gave utterance to, as the official said himself, an optimistic forecast for 2010: “According to our forecast, it (the foreign trade balance) will be positive, approximately in the range of USD 1 – 0.8 bln. We expect the foreign trade turnover to increase by approximately 14 per cent. This includes a growth in exports – by 15 per cent and in regard to imports – by approximately 12 per cent.”

However, a simple calculation, based on the data from the State Committee of Ukraine for Statistics, shows the following: if the previous year’s volume of exports, which came to approximately USD 39.7 bln, would increase by 15 per cent and that of imports (which was, respectively, USD 45.4 bln) would increase by 12 per cent, then the trade balance would still stay negative, exceeding, by absolute value, USD 5 bln.

Even if we would take into account the trade in services as well, the overall foreign trade balance, with the growth rate that was predicted by V. Muntiyan, would hardly break even.

On the photo: “Semyon Semyonovich!”, a shot full of perplexity and a catch phrase with mocking reproach to an absent-minded person, from the Soviet movie The Diamond Hand.