Ukraine sees inflow of $100 mln in investment, outflow of $300 mln in dividends monthly in Q1 – EBA

Tomas Fiala, the President of the European Business Association (EBA), says Ukraine in January-March 2018 (Q1), received $100 million in investment, while $300 million in dividends was withdrawn from the country on a monthly basis.

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"Last year, foreign direct investment was estimated at about $2 billion, but the same amount of money was withdrawn from the country in the form of dividends. Therefore, there is no net inflow. Since the beginning of the year, the indicators have been even worse. We have data for three months [January-March]. The rate of foreign direct investment inflows slowed to less than $100 million per month, while the outflow in the form of dividends increased. Some $300 million in dividends is withdrawn from Ukraine every month," he told a briefing in Kyiv on April 26.

According to Fiala, the acceleration of economic growth to 5-7% per year, the government focuses on, is possible only if domestic investment increases to 25% of GDP from the current 15%.

"We see that over the past 12 years, Ukraine has been much behind with domestic investment at a mere 15% of GDP. It is too little. For the country to develop at the rate that the government recently announced, that is 5-7% of GDP [economic growth annually], the share of domestic investment in GDP should be at least 25%," Fiala stressed.

As UNIAN reported earlier, foreign direct investment in Ukraine's economy (non-resident shareholders' equity) amounted to US$1.871 billion in 2017, according to the State Statistics Service.