The IT sector of Ukraine in the first five months (January-May 2022) provided export earnings in the amount of $3.2 billion, which is 27% more than in the same period in 2021. IT is the only business sector that showed growth in 2022, according to OpenDataBot, citing data from the National Bank.
In fact, IT now accounts for almost half of all exports of services. To be more precise, over the five months of this year, the share of IT in all exports of services amounted to 46%. For comparison, a year ago this figure was 37%.
From January to May 2022, all exports of services remained at the level of the corresponding period last year – $6.8 billion. At the same time, exports of goods fell by 20% – from $22.5 billion to $17.9 billion. The fall was recorded in the main categories, such as ferrous metals – 38%, food – 6%.
The war also affected the geography of exports of goods. If in 2021 the shares of Europe and Asia in the total volume were almost the same – 38% and 40%, respectively, then in 2022 the share of Europe doubled and exports amounted to 78% ($2,080 million from $2,651 million).
Exports to Europe for the period January-May 2022 increased by 6% compared to the same period in 2021, exports to Asia decreased by 86%, to America – by 67%, to Africa – by 84%, and to the CIS countries – by 74%.
How the state plans to stimulate the development of IT in Ukraine
Given the current statics, and in general, it should not be surprising why the Ukrainian government makes a huge bet on IT in the strategy of economic recovery on the development of the country. One of the main goals of the current government is to increase the share of IT in the country’s GDP from the current 4% to 10% by 2024, and the Action has a significant role in achieving this goal. This week, the Ministry of Digital Development announced a new Digital4Freedom initiative, which the department called digital lend-lease and aimed at an immodest 40% share of IT in the overall structure of GDP. It became part of a 10-year program for the restoration of Ukraine (it is also called the “Marshall Plan for Ukraine”), estimated at $750 billion.
Even earlier, the government launched six grant programs to create new jobs, laying the foundation for a major project “eRobota” 
The state promises to start issuing non-repayable grants up to UAH 250,000 to Ukrainians for new businesses. They plan to issue 20,000 such grants per year, and a total of UAH 5 billion will be allocated for this. and will allow anyone who has the desire, skills and plan to start their own business, expand their small or medium business, and also start a new career. As part of this program, the state will provide from UAH 750,000 to UAH 3.5 million for IT startups (to administer the Ukrainian Startup Fund initiative), as well as pay for the education of Ukrainians in new specialties in the IT field (scholarships up to UAH 30,000 are provided) — in total, UAH 1.8 billion will be allocated for this to train 60 thousand Ukrainians (the Start in IT initiative, the second name is IT Generation).
Mintsifra, Binance and Lviv IT Cluster launch an educational project IT Generation, which will help Ukrainians get an education for free and start a career in IT
