Ukraine, Georgia’s important partner

The results of the Ukrainian Presidential elections are very important for Georgia’s economy. Ukraine has recently been one of Georgia’s most important trading partners and a worsening of political relations between the two countries is likely to seriously damage their economic relations. Some analysts however think that political relations should not affect economic ones.

Georgian-Ukrainian economic relations particularly developed after 2006, when Russia imposed its economic embargo on Georgia. In 2002 for instance imports from Ukraine were worth USD 35 million and exports to it USD 11 million but bilateral trade turnover has now increased very seriously: imports from Ukraine are now worth more than half a billion USD and exports up to USD 100 million. In 2008 Georgia imported up to USD 658 million in goods from Ukraine and exported to it up to USD 134 million. In 2009, against the background of the world economic crisis, trade turnover with Ukraine decreased but it remained Georgia's third biggest trading partner after Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Some analysts are predicting a serious decline in trade turnover between the two countries if Yanukovich wins, however economic developments do not always coincide with political ones.