These developments have been accompanied by a heightened demand for building products of a wide assortment and high quality. As domestic production of construction materials continues to decline, foreign participation in the Ukrainian market has been expanding. Given the general falls in the production of all types of products in Ukraine during last years, the value of construction projects completed by Ukrainian companies in 1997 fell by 23.65 percent over the same period in 1996. The most significant among these projects were devoted to construction of one power unit at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Station, laying of 578 km of electric power lines, gas and oil pipelines, inter-city cable communication lines and fiber optic communication lines. The State Committee for Residential Construction and Architecture estimates that over 4,000 enterprises are engaged in various sub- sectors of the Ukrainian construction industry.
Renovation is unequivocally the most prevalent undertaking in the Ukrainian construction market.
Other regions with a significant amount of entrepreneurial activity include Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnitsk and Kirovohrad. Due to declining domestic production, increasingly more firms are importing construction materials. It is estimated that in Kyiv alone, 400-600 firms are engaged in the trading of building products. An EBRD survey found that only 2 percent of Kyiv's hotel rooms meet the standard of 4-star accommodations. There is a growing demand for high-quality, but affordable building products.