The international ratings agency Fitch has worsened its forecast of Ukraine's GDP. Reportedly, it would contract by 10 percent in 2015 as opposed to 9 percent as forecast before, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
Fitch noted that Ukraine's economic perspectives are very dependent on macroeconomic recovery.
"Restrictions on cash withdrawals and foreign currency control are important elements that support the banking sector's functioning. We do not expect that these measures will be fully abandoned in the future," the agency's statement says.
Earlier the World Bank had also changed its forecast of Ukraine's GDP, saying it would contract by 12 percent in 2015, but possibly grow 1 percent in 2016.
Ukraine takes Russia to WTO over railway equipment:
Ukraine has launched a trade dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a complaint about Russia's restrictions on Ukrainian-made railway equipment.
The WTO said in a statement on October 21 that Ukraine contended the Russian restrictions had been in place since late 2013.
Ukraine alleged that the restrictions broke several WTO rules and amounted to an effective ban on imports of the products into Russia, the WTO statement said.
An official at Russia's Ministry for Economic Development told TASS that "tactics" were being devised to deal with the Ukrainian complaint.
The action comes with relations between Kyiv and Moscow already tense due mainly to Russia's illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014 and the Kremlin's direct backing of pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters, Interfax, TASS)
President Petro Poroshenko expects Ukraine to improve its position in the Doing Business rating of the World Bank this year by at least 10 points, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
"We have preliminary information that Ukraine will improve by at least 10 points," he said in a speech in Ivano-Frankivsk today.
At the same time, Poroshenko stressed that he was not satisfied with such a result. He said that after the local elections on October 25, the implementation of reforms has to speed up in Ukraine.
Ukraine has improved its Doing Business rating from the 112th position in 2014 to 96th this year.
This ends our live blogging for October 21. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.