OREANDA-NEWS. According to Millennium Capital with reference to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, real GDP growth was estimated at 7.3% y/y for January-September 2007 (7.5% for January-August 2007). GDP amounted to USD 97.5bn over 9M2007. The highest growth rates were in manufacturing (12.7% in 9M2007 vs. 12.9% in 8M2007), construction (11.6% in 9M2007 vs. 10.2% in 8M2007) and trade and related services (17.1% in 9M2007 vs. 16.7% in 8M2007).  Education growth decelerated from 0.2% to 0%. Further reduction in growth was observed in agriculture (from -2.9% in 8M2007 to -4.7% in 9M2007). Solid and accelerating growth was seen in transport and communications (from 5.3% in 8M2007 to 6.7% in 9M2007), and a slight improvement was seen in extracting industries (from 2.7% to 3.3%) and health care (from 1.2% to 2.4%).

Although decelerated, GDP growth remained much higher in 9M2007 compared to 9M2006 (6.2% y/y). The main decelerating factor in GDP growth was the high negative growth in agriculture in September (which is related to unfavorable weather conditions), while most other sectors had slight acceleration or maintained similar growth. The growth in trade and related services has been outpacing its previous growth rate in each month and has an impressive rate, which are expected to continue through 2007. The Cabinet of Ministers plans to revisit the forecast of GDP growth for 2008, whereas it maintains its predictions of GDP growth to be 6.5% in 2007. It also announced the revisiting of the yearly inflation forecast for 2007. At the same time the Presidential Secretariat predicts inflation at 11.8-12% this year and has announced its GDP forecast for 2008 - USD 170mn. Millennium Capital experts maintain their forecasts of GDP growth for 2007 at USD 130.7mn (6.9% real growth, 22% growth in USD), and are currently revising their inflation forecast for 2007.