Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal says the Ukrainian economy will start to recover in the third quarter of this year, Interfax Ukraine reports.

"In the third quarter, the Ukrainian economy began to recover. In addition to the recovery in consumption, this was positively affected by the harvest, which was actually postponed from the second quarter to the third due to weather conditions. Also, according to forecasts of the Ministry of Economy, in the next three years, GDP will grow on average more than 4% annually," wrote Shmyhal on his official Facebook page on August 16.

The fall in GDP in 2Q20 was to 11.4% compared to the same period in 2019, against 1.3% in the first quarter, the State Statistics Service said.

In relation to the first quarter of this year, GDP in the second quarter decreased (taking into account the seasonal factor) by 9.9%, according to the statistical service.

Earlier, the State Statistics Service revised the preliminary estimate of GDP decline in the first quarter, improving it from 1.5% to 1.3%.

According to the statistics department, GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2019 was 1.5%, in the third quarter 3.9%, in the second quarter 4.7% and in the first quarter 2.9%.

The Ministry of Economy in early August estimated the drop in Ukraine's GDP in the second quarter of this year at 11%, just like the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), and in general for the first half of the year at 6.5%.

The NBU expects a slowdown in the decline in the third quarter to 7.4%, in the fourth quarter to 3.8%, in general predicting a decline in GDP by the end of this year at 6%. At the same time, the government still maintains a more optimistic forecast of a decline in the economy at 4.8%

This year was supposed to be the first with strong growth after the EuroMaidan revolution plunged the country into a deep economic recession that saw GDP contract by 17% at its worst in 2017. Growth was supposed to be 4-5% and the economy was supposed to expand by 40% over the next five years.

The economy has been struggling to get back on its feet ever since and has been hit by multiple shocks. In 2Q20, GDP contracted by 11.0% year on year, down from 1.3% y/y drop in 1Q20, the ministry estimates.

The premier noted that the situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19) is not only a serious blow to the medical systems of different countries.

"This is also one of the largest economic recessions in the past 70 years. Almost all world economies showed a rapid decline in GDP in the second quarter," Shmyhal said.