The performance of the Ukrainian economy in May 2011, which was recently announced by the State Statistics Service, suggest the acceleration of its growth in the first five months of 2011 to 5% from 4.6-4.9% in April 2011, according to Valeriy Lytvytsky, the head of the group of advisers to the NBU governor.

"The industries oriented at domestic demand - retail trade and construction - have shown the double-digit pace of growth," he said.

Lytvytsky said that such positive trends in these industries and the pace of industrial growth had helped compensate for a slowdown in cumulative dynamics in agriculture by 0.5 percentage points.

"It was particularly good that the negative impact of base effect in the second quarter of 2010 was lower than many experts predicted," he said. Lytvytsky noted that the effect of high base would cease to act in the second half of this year, which increases the likelihood of reaching this year's GDP growth of 4.7% that was raised by the government from 4.5%.

He added that a good forecast for the harvest of grain crops and prices for them, as well as the restoration of the previous dynamics of the global economy in the fourth quarter of 2011 also added optimism.

Lytvytsky noted that inflation had slowed by 0.5 percentage points in May 2011, while economic growth had increased by 0.2-0.3 percentage points, which was a very positive trend.

UKRINFORM