solvency of those section of population which is the consumer of domestically produced goods
even in the market saturated with imported goods market may also be regarded as a negative
factor of influence on the process.
The poll made among the consumers of technologically complex consumer goods has
given the major trends for the consumers’ behavior. About 70 per cent polled are intended to
acquire the imported goods exclusively, at least these produced in Russia or Belorus. Each third
polled would not buy any goods than to acquire Ukrainian produced ones.
The situation in the refrigerator market may be regarded as a typical example.
Under the Soviet Union refrigerators used to be goods in deficit and there were chronic
imbalances in this segment of market of durable goods which manifested through disparities in
the quantity and the quality of demand and supply. Nowadays the situation is being changed.
Numerous companies, seven of which are domestic producers, supply the Ukrainian consumer
with their products that can not be absorb because of the law population solvency.
It is paradoxical but instead of the decline in prices one can observe their growth in
1997 at 30-35 per cent in the average. The assessments made show that in case of price
reduction at the level of 10 per cent the total sales for these goods would grow in Ukraine at
least up to 42,000 units, and with the reduction of prices at 20 per cent it would come to more
than 110,000. However, producers prefer to make strategy on possible growth of the population
income instead of relying on the price reduction concept. The production costs have grown in
15,000-17,000 times from 1990 while the retail prices for the goods have raised in 18,000-
22,000 times over the same period. This, in the line with rapid decline of solvency of the
Ukrainian population greatly reduced the capacity of the domestic market. Because of this, the
saturation with refrigerators has dropped from 88 units per 100 households in 1991 to 72 in
1997. More over, each forth refrigerator which is currently used by Ukrainian households needs
replacement or should be repaired. It means that the age of refrigerators in use will shortly reach
a critical level and is gradually approaching the complete worn-out steek. Most of the
domestically produced brands of refrigerators can not satisfy consumers neither with their
quality nor with their design. For example, the NORD Company produced refrigerators are
placed at the seventh position of their quality among the similar goods produced in the CIS
countries.
The sharp reduction of refrigerators supply by domestic producers in the early 1990s
gave foreign companies a possibility to strengthen their positions in the Ukrainian market and to
win a considerable its part comparatively easy. The population more and more prefers high
quality imported appliances. Thus, given the absence of any state support for home producers
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