Ukraine's heavy industry is almost completely paralyzed, and the manufacturing sector has seen a 20 percent decline.
Ukraine is drained by monetary, budgetary, industrial, banking, and energy crises, which are likely to turn it into a third-world country in the near future and force it to live on handouts from friendly nations, according to the AFP report (news agency, France).
Foreign investors are staying away from the Ukrainian market, and the value of the hryvnia has dropped by 50 percent since January, the French agency reports.
'As with many developing markets, this has a direct impact on the wealth of households, businesses, and public finances, because both private and government debt is denominated in foreign currency', said Julien Marcilly, chief economist of the insurance firm Coface.
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Furthermore, it is known that Ukraine's GDP shrank by 6.8 percent last year, and expectations for the end of 2015 regarding GDP suggest a further decline of 7.5 percent.
'There is a banking crisis, a currency crisis, and an economic crisis that has resulted in a significant drop in GDP last year. This year, Ukraine will also face an energy crisis', claims Francis Malizh, managing director for Eastern Europe at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
According to the IMF, Ukraine's debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to rise to 94 percent this year, up from 40 percent in 2013.
A year ago, the IMF came up with a $17.5 billion bailout plan for Ukraine. Of that amount, $5 billion has already been disbursed. This sum is part of a larger $40 billion package that the international community has pledged to pay. Thus, the IMF aims to help Ukraine withstand pressure from Russia.
For the same reasons, the EU has offered Ukraine $2 billion in immediate financial assistance and a large package of $12 billion later on.
It has been reported that Ukraine is also facing huge difficulties with loans in the open market. Potential creditors are deterred by the risk of default by Ukraine.
Nevertheless, some global businesspeople are ready to invest part of their capital in Ukraine. In particular, billionaire investor George Soros recently stated that he is willing to give one billion dollars for these purposes. However, he, like many other investors, is frightened by the level of corruption in Ukraine.
Kyiv authorities assure that they are trying to eradicate corruption and have recently publicly fired oligarchs from power and arrested high-ranking officials. However, these actions are still seen in the world as 'part of the game', AFP reports.