World Bank sees Ukraine economy shrinking 8.0pc this year due to war

KIEV, Oct 2 (Reuters): Ukraine's economy is likely to shrink by 8 per cent this year and contract again next year because of the effect of the separatist war in the industrialised east, the World Bank said on Thursday.
The bank had previously expected Ukraine's gross domestic product would contract by 5 per cent this year and then grow 2.5 per cent next year. It now expects the economy to contract by 1 per cent in 2015.
"Disruption in economic activity in the east has resulted in a sharper GDP decline. We project that GDP will be an 8 per cent decline in 2014," Qimiao Fan, the World Bank's chief representative for Ukraine, told reporters.
The bank's forecast was the latest downbeat assessment for the economy because of the conflict which has hit steel, chemicals and coal output particularly hard in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.