Ukraine's trade deficit up 35.6 pct in 2012

Ukraine's trade deficit in 2012 jumped 35.6 percent year-on-year to 9.027 billion U.S. dollars as imports outpaced exports in the East European country, the State Statistics Committee said Friday, according to Xinhua.

In 2012, total foreign trade topped 173.701 billion dollars with exports up 0.2 percent to 82.337 billion dollars and imports rising 2.8 percent to 91.364 billion dollars, the statistics agency said.

Russia, Turkey, Egypt and Poland were among Ukraine's largest export markets, it said. And steel, ferrous metals, agricultural goods and machinery were the country's primary export goods in 2012.

In 2011, Ukraine posted a trade deficit of 6.657 billion dollars.