Ukraine's GDP to drop 33.4 pct in 2022: central bank

Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) will drop by 33.4 percent this year amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the National Bank of Ukraine said on Friday.

The present military conflict, the loss of lives and the population outflow from the country are the main factors behind the decline, the bank said on Facebook.

In its baseline forecast, the bank said that Ukraine's nominal GDP will shrink from 5.46 trillion hryvnias (about 149.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021 to 4.54 trillion hryvnias (124.1 billion dollars) in 2022.

In the third quarter of 2022, Ukraine's economy is expected to drop 37.5 percent year-on-year after falling 15.1 percent and 39.3 percent in the first and second quarters respectively, the bank said.

The inflation rate in Ukraine is expected to reach 31 percent at the end of 2022 compared with 10 percent in the previous year, it said.

At the same time, the bank projected that the Ukrainian economy will return to growth in 2023, with GDP increasing by 5.5 percent.

Ukraine's GDP rose 3.4 percent in 2021 following a 4-percent contraction in 2020, the country's central bank reported in May.