Ukraine is one of those countries with economies in transition that suffered greatly from the transformation crisis in the 1990s. If in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a whole real GDP fell by an average of 45% compared to the pre-reform level of 1989, then in Ukraine this drop exceeded 60%. However, at present, the situation of the Ukrainian economy has stabilized and even managed to ensure a significant increase in production.
In Ukraine, as in most countries in transition, regional imbalances have become significant. In particular, the following regional changes have been observed in this country:
the variation in the population in the regions of Ukraine reached a fourfold value; differentiation of production potential and contribution to industrial production of the regions of Ukraine also turned out to be very significant (from 21% of the total industrial production of the country to 0.4% in different regions); positive dynamics of the most important economic indicators was observed not in all regions: if in 24 Ukrainian regions an increase in the gross regional product was noted, then in 4 regions the decline continued, in some cases reaching 20%; the variation in unemployment in Ukraine manifests itself in the directions “south-north” and “west-east”, its value currently corresponds to the range of 4-7.9%.
It should be noted that in Ukraine, active scientific research related to the search for the optimal administrative-territorial division of the country was actively conducted immediately after Ukraine gained sovereignty. However, the adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine in 1996 fixed its administrative-territorial structure as a unitary state, which includes the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and
24 regions, as well as the cities of Kiev and Sevastopol endowed with a special status.
Despite this, scientific discussions about the territorial structure of Ukraine have by no means ended. In particular, in 2000 a specially created commission submitted a draft Concept of State Regional Policy (draft Concept-2000), which provides for the implementation of an active state policy to promote the development of depressed (problem) regions in the period up to 2005. They were understood as compact formations (settlements or their aggregates), in which the rate of decline in production and consumption per inhabitant, the average monthly income of workers, the unemployment rate, the provision of social services to the population, the degree of subsidization of the local budget and other socio-economic indicators are significantly inferior to the national average values. The state policy of assistance to depressed (problem) regions is planned to be implemented by means of monetary, financial, price, tax, investment impact on the socio-economic situation of the territories.
In addition, state support and assistance is supposed to be provided to:
regions that have suffered from structural deformations, which have led to a sharp increase in the unemployment rate; economically underdeveloped regions, due to historical, natural-geographical and other factors that have significantly lower socio-economic indicators than the national average; regions affected by natural disasters and man-made disasters, as well as ecologically unfavorable territories.
The peculiarity of the draft Concept-2000 is that in it for the first time regional policy is defined in close connection with the administrative-territorial reform, during which it is planned to create new administrative-territorial formations – districts (volosts) as enlarged territorial entities.