Geographic Information

Area - 26,500 sq. km
Population - 1,862,000

The Vinnytsya oblast was founded on 27 February 1932, its area makes 4.5% of the state's territory. The oblast is located in the central part of the Right Bank Ukraine and borders on seven administrative oblasts of Ukraine. In the southwest of the oblast along the Dnister river passes a 202 kilometer long section of the state border with Moldova.

Administratively the oblast's territory is divided into 27 village districts, the oblast center is divided into 3 town districts. The oblast has 17 towns, 30 town type villages and 1,467 villages. The town of Vinnytsya, which is over 630 years old, has more then 400 thousand residents.

As of 1 January 1997 the urban population of the oblast was 886,700 and the rural 975,500. The population density is 70 people per sq. km. The proportion of employable population is 56.4%.

The Vinnytsya oblast is a land with an appreciable mineral raw material base. 1,159 deposits and manifestations of various mineral resources, tens of peat deposits, unique deposits of granite and kaolin, garnet and fluorite have been explored. A number of medicinal mineral water springs have been found in the oblast, they function as well as radon's water springs in the town of Khmilnyk. Having such invaluable mineral springs the Vinnytsya oblast may soon take the leading position in their export to CIS countries or to the world market.

The oblast has the world largest deposit of competitive mineral raw material kaolin (800million t). The range of its use is very broad: paper, ceramic (porcelain/faience), electrical engineering (insulators), refractory, aluminum, textile, cable, rubber, chemical and soap industries as well as perfumery, manufacture of pencils and mineral paints.

Unique decorative qualities of Vinnytsya's granites, sobites, vinnytsites, charnockites allow to manufacture stone, facing slabs, window sills, monuments, etc.

Three granite deposits (whose resources are 10million cu.m) have been explored and are being mined, an experimental mining is carried out in eight developed deposits. Enterprises are provided with resources for more than 100 years.

A garnet deposit, the only in Europe, has per year, which are imported from Mongolia, China, and Thailand (in sum $20million).

The Vinnytsya oblast is the only oblast of Ukraine containing large pelicanite resources (39 deposits with the total inferred resources of about 170 million tons).

The brown coal of the Vinnytsya land is similar in quality to that mined in well known brown coal mines of the Dniprobas and can be well used for energy purposes, for processing by semicoking and hydrogenation methods. Three deposits in the oblast with resources about 50million t have been preliminarily explored and three more are in the process.

The building materials industry widely uses local sand and gravel. There are five sand deposits, all of which are exploited, one of them is for silicate bricks, three for building mortars and one for ballast.

In the Vinnytsya land there have been revealed and are being employed the therapeutic properties of the mineral water of the Khmilnyk radon deposit. Also 21 table water springs have been prospected, ten of them have been certified and at five deposits filling has been arranged ("Rehina", "Kniazhna", "Shumylivska", "Podilska" and "Rosiana"). "Myrhorodska" type mineral water has been found. Revealing new radon deposits is possible.

Bauxite (the ore for aluminum making) have been found for the first time in Podillia. The geologists took stock of their recourses, that are about 3million t. back to top

Agriculture

The total farmland area is 1,960.5 thousand hectares; of them, arable lands occupy 1,694.0 thousand hectares, and perennial plantations, 51.2 thousand hectares.

As of 1 January 1997 in the oblast there were functioning 749 collective agricultural enterprises, 56 state farms of all systems, 25 inter farm agricultural enterprises, and 818 private (peasant's) farms.

Agricultural enterprises of all forms of ownership are primarily specialized in growing of cereal crops and sugar beets, the animal husbandry, meat and milk production. In the overall structure of sown areas, winter wheat crops occupy 18%, barley 14% and sugar beets 10%.

In 1996 the oblast produced 7% of grain, 14.3% of sugar beets, 7.5% of fruits and berries, 6.1% of meat in live weight, 5.4% of milk and 4.0% of eggs of their total production in Ukraine.
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Foreign Economic Relations

In 1996 enterprises and organizations of the oblast executed foreign trade operations with partners from 73 countries of the world. The total foreign trade volume for this period made $397,500,000, including export ($280,900,000) and import ($116,600,000), which resulted in positive balance ($164,300,000).

The oblast's foreign trade with CIS and Baltic countries in this time reached 58.2 % of the total foreign trade turnover. The largest export deliveries are to the Russian Federation (42.6%), Belarus (5.4%), Belgium (7.2%) and Germany (7.45%).

No considerable changes have taken place in the structure of commodity exports. As before, leading in this field are the food industry (47.5%), light industry (14.18%), machine building (10.96%), chemical industry (5.09%) and agriculture (6.36%).

Enterprises of the Vinnytsya oblast seek to import urgently needed products which are in short supply. Main items of import in 1996 were mineral fertilizers (2.68%), petroleum products (10.27%), equipment (11.63%), surface transport facilities (3.82%), inorganic chemistry products, electrical machines, fabrics and yarn.

Taking into account main lines of production, considerable quantities of farm machinery and equipment for processing and building materials industries are brought to its territory. Owing to this agricultural enterprises of the oblast managed in 1996 to perform a full range of fieldwork and obtained a good harvest of cereal and industrial crops.

At the same time large quantities of products that are not in demand of population as well as goods manufactured in sufficient quantities by the oblast's enterprises are brought to the oblast. Moreover a considerable amount of valuable raw leather is brought out on so called "tolling" terms in exchange of poor quality semi manufactures, footwear, leather jackets, etc.

Of special concern is the fact that enterprises of the oblast are steeply reducing import of the equipment, spare parts, completing items, while import of alcoholic drinks, juices, and other low grade consumer goods is rising. As shown by calculations, the oblast, having a considerable export/import potential, has real opportunities through an effective use of the foreign trade to increase revenues both of the local and of the state budget and to provide itself with the necessary "critical" products.

The oblast's enterprises seek to attract foreign investments for increasing the output of products. Since 1991 till December 1997 about 300 joint enterprises with foreign investments amounting to $23,300,000 were established in the Vinnytsya oblast. Enterprises and citizens from 41 countries of the world participated in organization of the enterprises. The largest amount of investments came from the USA, Germany, Poland, Israel and some other countries. back to top

Industry

The oblast's industrial potential is represented by such enterprises as the Ladyzhyn thermal power station, associations "Zhovten", "Infrakon", "Maiak", "Krystal", "Vinnytsya Bearing Works", "Khimprom", tens of processing and light industry enterprises. In all about 400 enterprises of various industrial sectors are functioning in the oblast.

The Vinnytsya oblast has 12.7% of the industrial production potential, 2% of the cost of fixed production assets and 2.6% of the industrial output.

The oblast has a multisectoral industrial complex, where leading places are held by the food industry, machine building and metalworking.

Over 400 industrial enterprises of 13 industrial sectors are functioning in the oblast. Main of them are food industry (57.5%), electric power industry (15.6%), machine building and metalworking (9.4%), chemical and petrochemical industry (5.7). Microbiology and medicine are developing.

72 machine building enterprises are specialized in manufacture of products in 12 industrial sectors, the main of which are electrical engineering, machine tool and toolmaking, instrument engineering, bearing, tractor and farm machinery industries. The Vinnytsya oblast's machine building products include metal cutting tools, pumps, rolling bearings, water, gas and heat flow meters, electric motors, electric spindles, computer facilities, production equipment for processing industries, farm machinery for plant growing and animal husbandry, integrated circuits, semiconductor and vacuum electronic devices, high economy luminescent lamps, stereoanagraphs, scales, automobile lifters, mills, milking equipment, etc.

The share of consumer goods output in the oblast in their total production in Ukraine is of 5.7% (1996). They are manufactured by 359 enterprises.

The oblast specializes in production of foodstuffs. The total output of consumer goods in 1996 made 81.1%, domestic and recreational purpose goods 9.0% and light industry products 6.4%.

In the output of consumer foodstuffs in 1996 the Vinnytsya oblast was the second and of non food goods took the 11th place among the oblasts of Ukraine.

Main positions in the structure of production of domestic and recreational goods are held by products manufactured at enterprises of the machine building complex, chemical and defense industries: complex domestic facilities, small mechanization means for household plots and small holdings, domestic chemistry goods.

Among the light industry enterprises is of great use concluding agreements with foreign firms to manufacture goods from the raw material supplied by the customer of the products. Cooperation with firms of Germany, USA, Slovakia, Czech, Hungary, India and others has been established. In 1996 the Vinnytsya joint stock company "Podillia", public joint stock company "Khmilnyk Garment Factory 'Lileia'", Vinnytsya public joint stock company "Volodarka", joint stock company "Tulchin Garment Factory" and others worked on raw materials supplied by the foreign firm's customers.

The electric power generating capacity of power plants at the oblast's territory is 10,523,400 kWh per year. At present, their are underl oaded. The electric power generation in 1996 produced 3,548 kWh, while its consumption in the same year was 5,041,000 kWh.

The oblast has 39 sugar factories and 13 distilleries. A quite good base for processing sunflower seeds and groats crops has been formed. back to top

Transport and Communication Three trunk pipelines cross the oblast's territory: Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhhorod, "Soiuz" and Dashava-Kyiv. 3,299.8 km of gas distributing networks are in service. It was planned to put 261 km of gas networks in operation in 1997.back to top