REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

PART I:
(46%) and duration (37 months), it did not embrace the monetary sphere to such extent –
from an exchange rate formation to a collapse of financial and banking institutions. The
modern world economy is a more complex formation as compared to that existing in the
times of the Great Depression. And currently the magnitude of a fall or a rise of industrial
production is not the main indicator of the crisis’ destructiveness.
Based upon the theory of a cyclic development, the world financial crisis 2008 is essentially
in conformity with the ideas of economic cycle and its stages. The regular world economy
develops in this very way – cyclically. Therefore, however cynically it may sound, crises
are an absolutely natural state of the international economic development.
By some evidence, the first signs of the impending crisis began to show up as yearly as
in 2002-2003. Already in early 2005 and up to 2007, that is over a period of 2-3 years, an
absolutely unpredictable situation in the financial field could be observed (first of all the
euro-dollar ratio, whereby the exchange rate of the euro rose significantly). This is the
first reason. The second one is the considerable appreciation of real estate in the world,
mortgage crisis in the US and so on. The third reason is the food cost: food supplies went
down and it started going up in price.
Those three factors – dollar-euro, real estate costs and the food crisis –were the reason why
the world shook with fever. Here one should add the so called derivatives which are more
virtual than real money.
As for Ukraine, here we can see a situation which cannot be expressly estimated. Firstly,
in the course of all years of its independence exactly in 2008 does Ukraine possess a
market economy with the most highly advanced attributes and a corresponding degree of
integration into the world economy. Secondly, the domestic economic and political crises
started well before the most prominent showings of the world financial crisis, including its
direct impact on Ukraine. Thirdly, the de facto repudiation by the political and economic
authorities of the impact the world financial crisis has had on Ukraine proved to be one of
the obstacles to a prompt formulation of an AP to mitigate such an impact.
The very development of the internal crisis in Ukraine has somewhat wimpled the world
crisis. And besides all other things, Ukraine faced the autumn 2008 completely unprepared
to the severe impact of the external disturbances.
The first serious impacts of the world financial crisis came up to Ukraine as far back as in
late summer. Here the case in point is the export businesses – metallurgy, chemical industry
and so on. In addition, as for Europe Ukraine’s exports is somewhat specific. When giving
a correct estimate of what constitutes a Ukrainian export – 50% of the exports throughout
the years of independence – one should say that it is crude products. Whereas in developed
countries 80% of exports is made of manufactures. In fact the structure of Ukrainian
exports is typical for the African states, but not for a country that is geographically situated
in Europe and strives to become a member of the EU.
As for the correlation (balance) between the major world currencies, a few observations
can be made. First, dynamics of euro-dollar is changing sure enough and nobody,
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