‘Stop buying expensive cars’: the Ministry of finance believes Ukrainians need to reduce consumption several times

Ukrainians need to significantly reduce their consumption several times over so that the country can transition onto a war footing.

This was stated by Ukraine’s Finance Minister, Serhiy Marchenko.

“As the Minister of Finance, I can say that transitioning onto a war footing isn’t just about the military industry; it’s also about society’s understanding that we are at war. Unfortunately, we’re currently living in a rather specific reality where everything seems fine, there’s macroeconomic stability, stability in exchange rates. But this reality will require adjustments if we want to transition onto a war footing. It involves restricting public consumption. We need to reduce it several times over because we primarily consume imported goods and services, which define our economic potential,” Marchenko said.

According to him, if people don’t stop buying “expensive phones and cars, the economy will draw painful conclusions very quickly.”

He believes that society is not ready for this at the current stage, but it’s a potential scenario.

“There might be different tax regimes, different spending regimes. We should prepare for this and, thinking about the year 2025, we should lay out corresponding scenarios,” Marchenko added.