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Geographic Information
Area - 13,800 sq. km.
Population - 1,169,000
The Ternopil region was created on December 4, 1939. Its area is 2.3% of the territory of Ukraine.
The region is divided into 17 districts and has one city under the control of the regional authorities - regional center Ternopil, 15 towns under the control of the district authorities, 19 villages of a town type, 1016 villages. The region borders on Ivano-Frankivsk region in the west and southwest, Chernivtsi region in the south, Lviv region in the Northwest, Rivne region in the north and Khmelnytsky region in the east.
The region's population is 2.3% of the total population of Ukraine, including 512,400 people of urban area (4.8%) and 656.2 thousand of rural population.
Over 300 mineral deposits have been geologically explored and researched in the region. Mainly they belong to the group of building mineral raw materials. These are limes, chalk, marl, gypsum, quartz sands, sandstone, brick tile clays, loam, gravel/pebble materials.
Availability of substantial deposits of mineral raw materials creates favorable conditions for developing building materials industry. On the basis of the local raw materials it is possible to produce adequate quantity of cement, bricks, lime, gypsum, wall blocks, tile, facing materials to satisfy the needs of not only this region but of others regions of the country.
Presently, deposits of limes, sand, sandstone and clay are used. Considerable gypsum deposits, suitable for chemical, cement, paper industry, are used only for building needs. High quality dolomites, suitable for the use in many industry branches, first of all in metallurgical and glass ones, are used in road construction. Substantial deposits of marl, suitable for the production of high quality sorts of cement, are not exploited at all.
The region's fuel resources consist of small deposits of brown coal, not exploited at present due to unprofitability of their extraction, as well as of 84 deposits of peat which is used as a fuel for agricultural needs. Small accumulations of native sulfur, phosphorites, copper, iron and manganese ores are also known.
The region has some mineral water strings, adequate for the development of a health resort and treatment network. "Gusyatyn" spa functions on the basis of "naftusya" type mineral waters, hydrogen sulfide water and treatment mud are used in the health centres of Konopkivka village and Mykulyntsi town type village of Terebovlya district.
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Industry
The region's industry comprises 263 self balanced enterprises (as of 1998). The majority of the state owned enterprises decreased from 83.8% in 1991 to 23.2% in 1997. Their part in the total production volume decreased from 93.9% to 30.3% respectively.
3 branches - food, light and machine building, covering 82% of the total production volume, dominate in the industry branch structure.
Machine building and metalworking complex concentrates 25% of all the production facilities. The industry branch possesses the highest export potential. At the same time the branch has the highest accumulated potential of the latent unemployment. The machine building and metalworking part in the industry produce volume makes up 14.4% and the number of the branch workers is almost double this figure - 24.2%.
Resulting from the dependence on the raw materials import (cotton, synthetic fibers, dye stuffs), worn out equipment, old fashioned technologies and, consequently, low quality and high cost of the produce, the light industry turned out to be in extremely unfavorable conditions. Besides, due to the sharp decrease in solvent demand, the internal market has considerably narrowed. As a result of this, the branch part of the whole industry produce has decreased to 4.5%.
The largest specific weight among the industry branches is food industry - 63.6% which employs 35.5% of all the workers. This industry branch also suffered considerable decrease of production - by 2.6 times comparing with 1990, but it is less than in other branches and in the industry as a whole (3 times). The industry branch still possesses a substantial export potential, which part, comparing with other branches, has increased to a certain extent for the last years. The food industry concentrates 30% of the industry capital assets the biggest part of which is concentrated at sugar refineries.
Agriculture
The region's economy is of an agro industrial character. In 1997 the agriculture has produced 64.3% of the region's gross domestic product, the industry covers 28.2%. The agriculture employs over 36% of workers against 20% in Ukraine and 2.5-8% in the developed European countries.
Thus, the region's specific weight in Ukraine by the production of agricultural produce and by the majority of the main branches of the processing industry is higher than the average index, and is lower by other industrial branches. Occupying 2.3% of Ukraine's territory and concentrating 2.3% of the population, the region produces less than 1% of the production volume (1.6% in 1990) and 3.6% of the agriculture gross product (3.2% in 1990).
Agricultural land occupies 76% of the whole territory of the region, including 65% of the arable land. By the level of the arable land the region holds one of the honorary places in the country. 36.2% of agricultural land is damaged by water erosion.
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Agriculture (Continued)
The agricultural sector holds the leading place in the region's economy. The agriculture produces 64.3% of the region's gross domestic product, meets the region population's needs by the majority of the main foodstuffs, provides the processing industry with raw materials, thus creating the basis of the region's export potential.
Among the branches of the agro industrial complex dominates the plant growing branch - 53%, cattle breeding covers 47%. In 1990 the ratio was contrary: the plant growing branch covered 47.5% and the cattle breeding branch -52.5%, though the cattle breeding has suffered larger decrease for the last years.
In agriculture function 551 agricultural enterprises and 798 peasant farms. A substantial part of the output is produced at personal subsidiary smallholdings.
Transport and Communications
There are two airfields in the region (Ternopil, Chortkiv) which can serve medium class planes. The total length of the general use railway tracks under operation makes up 571.5 km, density - 41.4 km per 1000 sq. km (in Ukraine - 37.6 km). In 1998 electrification of the Ternopil-Pidvolochysk railway track section will be completed, allowing to fully transfer passenger and cargo train transport to electricity power from Chop to Kyiv in the frames of creating the European transport corridor No3 (Berlin-Wrotslav-Lviv-Kyiv). In 1997 Krasne-Zboriv and Zboriv-Ternopil were electrified.
The length of automobile roads with hard cover makes up 5.2 thousand sq. km, density - 377,2 km per 1000 sq. km (in Ukraine - 247 km).
The transport corridors No1 "Baltic Sea - the Black sea" (Lutsk- Ternopil- Khmelnytsky route), with Ternopil- Chernivtsi branch, and No3 "Europe- Asia" (Ivano- Frankivsk- Ternopil- Vinnytsya route) will go through the region's territory. On the region's north border passes Mozyr-Brody-Uzhgorod oil pipeline, which is a part of the "Druzhba" (Friendship) oil pipeline system. The Ternopil region's territory is crossed by 6 main gas pipelines with the total length of over 600 km. The construction of the "Odessa-Brody" oil pipeline is at the stage of completion.
The telephone communications network is expanded. Automatic city telephone stations for 6,560 numbers and rural telephone stations for 1,360 numbers were put into operation in 1997.
The quantity of the main telephone sets of the city and rural telephone network made up 162,300 units by the end of 1997 and increased in comparison with 1996 by 3%, including the city telephone network by 3.6% and the rural telephone network by 1.9%. The quantity of home main telephone sets made up 135,500 units in 1997 and increased in comparison with 1996 by 4.8%.
Foreign Economic Relations
The total volume of the foreign economic turnover is 105.2 million $US, including: export - $55.5 million; import - $49.7 million, favorable balance - $5.8 million. 47% of the export and 25% of the import are made to the CIS countries.
The most advantageous trade partners are Russian Federation, Belarus, Moldova. Among the faraway foreign countries the most advantageous partners are Germany, Poland, the USA, the United Arab Emirates.
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