Ukraine will be poor country even in 10 years - Doctor of Economics Libanova

Ella Libanova, Doctor of Economics, Director of the Institute, Academician, provided details in an interview with Espreso TV.

"When we talk about the recovery of Ukraine's economy, we should not talk about the recovery of Ukraine's economy in general, but about the recovery of the southern territories, the recovery of the territories close to the borders with two aggressive neighbors, the recovery of the western territories, central Ukraine, and metropolitan areas. These are five completely different approaches, and you need to understand this. Today, the Academy, the Department of Economics, and I personally are trying to convey this to the authorities. Because Ukraine is a poor country, and it will remain poor in 5 or 10 years. You have to look at things realistically, at what has been destroyed. I think no matter how hard we try to rebuild, we will remain a poor country. In a poor country, the population always gathers around the capital and metropolitan areas. We have 5 of them, and we also consider Lviv a metropolis, even though there are not a million people there," the scholar noted.

Lviv, she said, has not yet become a million city, because "more people have left than entered."

In eastern Ukraine, Libanova added, Kharkiv and Donetsk, once liberated, will continue to "pull out" their surrounding regions.

"I have great doubts about Sumy and Chernihiv regions, the northern part. But Kharkiv will pull out the entire region. It will lose something, of course. I would consider it inappropriate to keep military-industrial enterprises there. But the rest, as a technical center, a technological center, is undoubtedly true," said Ella Libanova.

Academician Libanova is convinced that Odesa will remain a metropolis, even despite the Russian blockade of the ports.

"Odesa is not only about ports. Odesa concentrates the entire south. The question is how much the south will be destroyed and how quickly we will be able to rebuild it. That's why I say that the south is separate, the west is separate," the academician emphasized.

As for the possibility of transferring (relocating) significant industrial facilities to the western part of Ukraine, the possibilities there are not unlimited.

"The West - because there is an ecological capacity there, which, as our ecologists say, has already been exhausted. There are certain reserves in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. I mean environmental reserves. The rest of the regions have nothing. Neither Volyn, nor Bukovyna, nor Zakarpattia have anything. Because there is an ecological capacity. This is water, free territories that are not under swamps, forests, or mountains. This is what is lacking there. We can move some more to the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, but that's it. That's why all our talk about relocating who knows what there seems to me to be very dubious," emphasized academician Ella Libanova.