Industrial production in Ukraine fell by 1.1% y/y in Q1

The trends in Ukrainian industry for 2025–2026 indicate stagnation

Industrial production in January–March 2026 fell by 1.1% compared to the same period last year. At the same time, in March of this year, industrial production rose by 4.5% compared to the same month in 2025. This was reported by the State Statistics Service.

The slowdown is due to a combination of factors:

• high costs of electricity and gas;
• power outages resulting from shelling of energy infrastructure;
• rising production costs and declining competitiveness;
• the negative impact of the implementation of CBAM.

These industrial trends fully correlate with the state of the rolled steel market. The first quarter of this year was one of the weakest in terms of sales since the start of the full-scale invasion. Overall, the decline in the rolled metal market in the first quarter of 2026 amounted to 35–45% compared to the same period in 2025 (depending on the region and segment).

As a reminder, industrial production declined by 2.4% year-on-year in 2025, compared to a 3.6% year-on-year increase in 2024. Industrial output in 2025 rose by 7% year-on-year – to $97.5 billion, but this is still 26% below the pre-war level of 2021 ($131.5 billion, excluding dollar inflation).