Ukraine’s manufacturing enterprises were not affected by lockdown limitations of 2020, but the decline rate of the production sector in 2020 hit its record high in the past five years, reaching minus 5.2 percent. According to OPPOSITION PLATFORM – FOR LIFE MP Serhiy Lovochkin, the government lacks understanding of how to manage the manufacturing industry, and this chronical illness of the current administration can only be eliminated through its complete reboot.

“The decline in production sector by 5.2 percent over one year is a sign of severe crisis caused not by the coronavirus epidemic implications but by the deficiency of much needed managerial decisions. A year ago, when the Cabinet was reappointed, one of its major tasks was to create a professional management for production sector, but this task remains unsolved. This caused the decline rate for the sector increase tenfold, from 0.5 percent to 5.2 percent, and the replacement of this government is on the agenda,” Lovochkin said.

The politician cited data for January – December 2020, when the manufacturing production decreased by 5.2 percent, including by 1.3 percent in fuel & energy and housing & utility sectors, by 3.1 percent in extractive industries, and by 6.9 percent in refining.

“Two years ago, with recovery rates of the time, the production sector could have reached the level of 2013 by around 2030, but current dynamics make the issue irrelevant. Still, the task must be set and solved so that other problems, like jobs and poverty, get resolved as well,” Lovochkin believes.

The MP says that establishing professional management of the industry sector and developing a real program of its revival are high-priority issues.

“The revival of the production sector is not a quick process, but it must be sustainable and ongoing. This way powerful nations are born, as proved by examples of China and South Korea recently, and Germany and Japan earlier,” Lovochkin summed up.