Kiev, 20 March. On March 12th the conference «Leasing: results of the industry in 2008. Forecast 2009» took place.

Irina Sokolova, Deputy Director of the Department of financial company’s supervision, the State Commission on Regulation of Financial Services Markets of Ukraine was also present at the conference. She pointed out, that Gosfinuslug is working in this moment together with the representatives of leasing companies in order to improve and solve legislative issues on the leasing market.

The rapid development of leasing market in Ukraine since early 2007 went into recession last year and this trend is continuing today. This was the opinion of the Ukrainian association of Lessors and of the TOP managers of the most important leasing companies on the market - Tatiana Saus (CEO «Laska Leasing»), Peter Oberauer (CEO «Raiffeisen Leasing Aval») and Roman Ivanenko (General Director of «Euro Leasing »).

Summing up the past period, it was noted a decrease in tenor of contracts and in the average amount of a lease contract. Analysis of past years and market survey was available for journalists. Without taking into account the leasing of wagons (specific product for Ukraine market), Raiffeisen Leasing Aval was first place ranked in terms of leasing contracts portfolio and on second - on the value of leased assets in 2008.

At the 2nd of April, 2008 the International Finance Corporation organized round-table discussion on the theme: «Leasing in Ukraine: the past, present and prospects of development». The purpose of meeting to present the results of annual leasing market survey in Ukraine and announce about official closing of IFC`s Ukraine Leasing Development Project . Research results demonstrate that during last 4 years favour of leasing as an alternative financial instrument has grown considerably and leasing market has increased in 44 times.

There were first presented the rating of leasing companies. Raiffeisen Leasing Aval has reached the leading position among universal leasing companies (according to the portfolio volume at the end of 2007 and the volume of leased assets during 2007). Therefore the company’s goal for 2007 – to become a market leader – is done!

The Ukrainian Leasing Market has expanded rapidly over the past two years, following the enactment of a new Law on Leasing. It has substantial potential for further growth as the marketis still immature as compared to other similar countries. The barriers to entry into the leasingmarket are relatively easy and this situation has led to growing competition with strong foreigncapital flows into the sector.

The potential leasing market in Ukraine is quite large as the country will require significantinvestments to renovate its obsolete productive assets. Official government statistics indicatethat $90 billion is required to renew fixed capital stock (a figure close to almost 100% of GDP),though some experts believe that the real figure is close to $170 billion. The averagedepreciation of fixed assets in the economy is 50%. In sectors such as agriculture, industry,construction, water and air transportation, the average depreciation of fixed assets is 60%. Fortransportation and industrial equipment alone the average depreciation is believed to be 80-90%.Many industries suffer from insufficient investment in capital assets due to high cost of capitaland lack of long–term debt financing.

In an effort to identify the opportunities that exist for investors, IFC's Ukraine Leasing Development Project (ULDP) conducted its third annual survey of the leasing market in 2007.

Here you can find out main differences operative and financial leasing. Also there is visual chapter which helps to choose preferable type of leasing.