Business location Ukraine

Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe. With an area of 603,700 sq. km, Ukraine is larger than France, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Poland. It borders Russia (1,576 km) in the Northeast, Belarus ( 891 km) in the North, Poland (526 km), Slovakia (97 km), Hungary (103 km) in the West, Romania (169 km) and Moldova (939 km) in the Southwest. Ukraine is washed by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in the South. The country has a very favourable location on the crossroads of Europe and Asia.

After becoming independent in 1991, Ukraine introduced significant economic reforms, some of which brought the country successfully a long way from the planned economy controlled by the Soviet Union and some are still in the process of implementation.  It began a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine was stricken with an eight year recession. But since then, the economy has been experiencing a stable increase with GDP growth averaging 24 percent annually. The GDP in 2008 is in total estimate $ 336.851 billion.
The credit crunch and lack of equity financing have shattered the developers' long term plans and put their activities on hold. The foreign and local developers have frozen the large-scale projects and postponed the delivery date for one or two years. As a result, the Ukrainian construction market has grinded to a halt.
The financial crisis has distressed most countries and sectors, including Ukraine and its real estate market. Nevertheless, further development can be expected.

The Ukrainian property market is currently in the expansion phase of its development. With the present troublesome situation and prolongations of project deliveries of up to 1-2 years, it is hard to anticipate when supply will equate the demand, and hard to predict when the market will step into the next phase of development.

The most important external trade partners are Russia, Germany, Italy, and Cyprus.

Overall, no one expects a big revitalization of the property market within 2010, however, the market development will continue due to big undersupply and significant demand from both local and foreign companies.
However, a significant interest in the Ukrainian property market does remain in the minds of large private-equity investment funds, industrial groups and retailers.

Viktor Yanukovych reached at the presidential election of 2010 more than 35 %, Julija Tymoschenko about 25 %. The result was not a big surprise because of the low voter participation of 67 % . The run-off-vote won Janukowytsch at 7. February 2010.