Last week, the State Statistics Service reported that in Q4, 2016, the Ukraine’s real GDP increased by 4.7%, which means that the annual GDP growth rates increased by 2.2%, Finance.ua

Some Ukrainian experts put in question the reliability of such calculations, because, firstly, in January-September 2016, the share of shadow economy decreased by 5 percentage points – to 35% from the official economy. Secondly, the balance of visible trade, according to NBU calculation, was by about USD 6 bln worse than the balance, calculated by the State Statistics Service. The negative trade balance decreases GDP. It allegedly meant that in 2016, the recession was continuing.

The journalist asked the National Bank to comment on these “expert” estimates.

“Both versions of the fictitious GDP indicator do not have grounds and are disproved, based on the methods of State Statistics Service”, NBU press-office said.

“The reduction of volumes of shadow economy cannot distort GDP calculations, because such calculations take into account both formal and informal economy sectors. The State Statistics Service conducts assessment of shadow economy as per the methodology “Methodological Provisions of Calculation of Volumes of Observable Economy”, posted on the official site of the State Statistics Service”, according to NBU.

NBU disproved the second assumption as follows: “The State Statistics Service uses specifically the indicators of the balance of payments, calculated by NBU, for GDP calculation, because they take into account the aggregate foreign trade – legal and shadow. Moreover, the indicators of foreign trade, displayed on the site of the State Statistics Service, take into account only statistical data, provided by the customs office. The discrepancy between data of statistical agencies and central banks is also common to other countries of the world. Back in the day, NBU posted the presentation of factors of inconsistency of indicators of foreign trade as per NBU and State Statistics Service data on its site”.