(KIEV)-As Ukrainian economists summarize the results of 2006, they note with satisfaction that the first 100 days of Victor Yanukovich’s anti-crisis cabinet has nearly tripled its predecessor’s growth performance (to 6%). Yanukovich’s first government showed by 2004 a GNP growth of 7-8 % following the breakup of the USSR, a record for Ukraine, which had long suffered under tight, unfavorable policies wielded by the Soviet Union. After Yulia Timoshenko was appointed Prime Minister in 2005, growth slowed to about 5%, which under Yuri Yekhanurov’s government in late 2005 dropped still further to 2.2 per cent.

Analysis of Ukrainian GNP dynamics clearly shows the decline of growth under Timoshenko and Yekhanurov. This especially underscores the falling growth of investment into main capital: 23.1% under the first Yanukovich government; 3.9% under Timoshenko; 1.9% under Yekhanurov; 16.1% under the second Yanukovich government. Other economic indices demonstrated similar changes, including construction, heavy industry, agriculture, retail, transportation.

According to experts from the Ukrainian Political Values Research Center, foreign trade suffered especially under Timoshenko and Yekhanurov. For the first time in ten years, Ukraine had a negative foreign trade balance, and this trend has still not been reversed.

The population’s growth of real income has been stable. In 2003, under Yanukovich’s first government, income was growing 12 to 17% a year, increasing only marginally under subsequent governments to 19 per cent, where it remains through the end of 2006.

The results of the first 100 days under the anti-crisis cabinet indicate maintenance of high salary growth and lowering unemployment. When one includes the broader view of social dynamics, the conclusion looms that while Timoshenko and Yekhanurov’s reformer governments pursued more socially oriented policies, these were made possible in the first place by Yanukovich’s original economic achievements upon which the current Yanukovich government continues to sustain a high tempo of social development in line with national economic progress.

Ukrainian analysts (in particular, Kost’ Bondarenko, Director of the Kiev Management Institute) note that all four Ukrainian governments that followed one another in 2004-6 have managed to advance macroeconomic stability, practically on the same level. Even criticized high social subsidies issued by Timoshenko and Yekhanurov’s governments with an eye toward parliamentary elections failed to produce inflation either in 2005 or in the first half of 2006. A trend towards mild inflation in September 2006 was blocked by the second Yanukovich cabinet’s measures. In general analysts note that it was Yanukovich’s first cabinet that in 2003-4 generated high state revenues that in turn made subsequent social spending possible.

Eastern Europe economic experts from Zentraleuropäische Gruppe für politisches Monitoring note that on the basis of the first 100 days of four Ukrainian cabinets, the statistical data of 2003-2004, as well as that of second half of 2006, speak favorably of Yanukovich’s team.