ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DCFTA ON THE FOREIGN TRADE OF SLOVAKIA AND THE UKRAINE

The EU and the Ukraine applied their Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) as of 1 January 2016. The DCFTA reimbursed the obsolete Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and contains a comprehensive agenda for bilateral cooperation spreading across all fields of common interest. This agreement includes that both sides, the EU and the Ukraine, will mutually open their markets for goods and services based on predictable and necessary trade rules and values of the EU. These rules of the DCFTA provide the Ukraine with an ambitious agenda for political and economic reforms and the equality of standards and rules of the Ukraine with the EU in areas such as competition, public procurement and intellectual property rights. The Ukrainian market for Slovakia and mutual foreign trade is very important from the point of view of the size of the market of Ukraine, geographical and linguistic proximity. Foreign trade between the Ukraine and Slovakia during the period of 20082015 has been gradually decreasing. Results for the first half of 2016 reflect the implementation of the DCFTA: the DCFTA improved the business and investment climate in the Ukraine through the removal of customs tariffs, tariff burdens and administrative burdens. For several years now, the Ukraine has been trying to draw nearer to those EU member states that will attract new investment, thus creating new jobs, increasing purchasing power and living standards in the Ukraine, thereby strengthening foreign trade between the Ukraine and Slovakia. The main aim of this paper is to estimate the economic impact of the implementation of the DCFTA on foreign trade between Slovakia and the Ukraine.