Ukrainians do not want to spend money, but say it is hard to save funds, says ICPS

Kyiv, November 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) –The number of Ukrainians who believe now is not the time to buy large household items almost doubled year-over-year, and the number of those who believe that October was not a good period for saving funds has also grown.

Representatives of the International Center of Policy Studies (ICPS) and GfK Ukraine reported at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine this evidence from a study they have conducted.

The results of their survey indicated that one third of respondents believe that now is a bad time to buy large items like furniture and large household appliances. The number of respondents with negative confidence grew from 16% in April 2008 to 33% in October. The number of respondents that said it is a good time to buy things fell by 10%, from 23% in April to 13% in October.

Chief analyst at GfK Ukraine, Dmytro Yablonovsky, said that one of the factors lowering Ukrainians' confidence in spending money is the complication of access to consumer credit, which Ukrainian banks have practically stopped issuing.

"Another peculiarity of Ukraine is that the population linked its economic expectations with the political instability in the country more than with the international economic crisis," he said.

Over the half of respondents (55%) are sure that now it is a bad time to save money, and 43% of respondents said that the key reason is high inflation and the fall in the value of deposits. The same number of respondents believes that it is inexpedient to save money, as there are no reliable ways to retain the value of savings and their incomes are enough only to cover current expenses – 31% and 30% respectively. One fourth of respondents said that they are ready to spend part of their income and save part (39%).

"In conditions of the crisis, the public has no common strategy for behavior, and it's very difficult to find the best strategy out of all," he said. Yablonovsky said that on the one hand, the worsening of the economic situation should cause restrictions of spending, but on the other hand high inflation makes saving an unattractive alternative.

Respondents were polled from October 17 to October 31 in all regions of Ukraine. A total of 1,000 respondents were polled. The International Centre for Policy Studies and GfK Ukraine have monitored consumer confidence since 2000.