According to the results of January-June 2026, China retained the first place among Ukraine's trading partners with a total turnover of $14.68 billion, more than twice the figure of Poland ($7.05 billion), according to the analysis of foreign trade presented by the founder of the Experts Club analytical center Maksym Urakin in video review of Ukraine's foreign trade on the YouTube channel of the Experts Club information and analytical center.
Turkey - $4.90 billion, Germany - $4.48 billion, and the United States - $3.07 billion in the top ten Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also entered.
As Urakin noted, China's leadership is primarily due to large-scale imports to Ukraine, which amounted to $13.90 billion in the first half of the year. At the same time, the export of Ukrainian goods to China reached only $778.4 million. The negative balance exceeded $13.12 billion, and almost $18 was accounted for every dollar of Ukrainian exports imports.
"Ukraine receives significantly more technological products from China - electric batteries, telecommunications equipment, optics, transformers, etc. One of the key structural challenges of Ukrainian foreign trade lies precisely in this. We, as before, in many respects export products with a relatively low added value, and import more complex industrial technological goods," the expert emphasized.
According to him, Ukraine supplies China mainly with agricultural products and raw materials, in particular vegetable oils and soybeans.
Poland remains the largest single market for Ukrainian exports: in six months, $2.38 billion worth of goods were delivered to it, while imports from this country amounted to $4.67 billion. The bilateral trade deficit reached $2.29 billion. Ukraine exports to Poland vegetable oils, metals, ore and soybeans, and imports, in particular, energy carriers and fertilizers.
Exports to Turkey amounted to $1.78 billion for imports of $3.12 billion, to Germany - $1.27 billion and $3.21 billion, respectively. Urakin drew attention to the fact that among the Ukrainian goods entering the German market, along with agricultural products, there are cables, furniture and pipes. Trade with the USA also remained deficient: imports reached $2.49 billion for exports of $586.7 million.
At the same time, Ukraine had a positive foreign trade balance, in particular, with Spain (+$578.1 million), Egypt (+$527.1 million), Moldova (+$467.2 million), Algeria (+$309.2 million) and the Netherlands (+$221.5 million). The expert emphasized the importance of the countries of North Africa and the Middle East as sales markets for Ukrainian products, even if they are not among the largest partners in terms of total turnover.
A comparison of actual trade relations with societal priorities revealed differences. According to a survey conducted by the Experts Club together with the Active Group in August 2026, 69.9% of respondents named the EU and Great Britain as Ukraine's preferred trade partners, the USA - 11.9%, China - 8.4%, the countries of Southeast Asia - 5.5%.
"Here we see an interesting gap between public perception and economic geography. China is the largest trade partner of Ukraine, but less than 10% of respondents named the development of trade with it as a priority direction. On the other hand, almost 70% focus primarily on the EU and Great Britain," Urakin said.
"Ukraine should not consider these directions as mutually exclusive. European integration objectively becomes the basis of the country's long-term economic model. At the same time, Ukraine needs to preserve and expand markets for its products in Asia, the Middle East and Africa," the expert emphasized.
According to his assessment, the key task remains to increase the share of goods with high added value - industrial products, technologies and services - in Ukrainian exports.
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