Information and Communication Sector at the Core of Ukraine’s Creative Economy: Assessing the Structure of Intercorrelations for Sustainable Development and Postwar Recovery

The development of the information and communication sector (ICS) is one of the most crucial components of the creative economy, reaching the goals of sustainable development and post-war economic recovery in Ukraine and its regions. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key trends in the functioning of the ICS in the creative economy and to explore its contribution to sustainable development and post-war reconstruction in Ukraine. The author has examined the key social and economic indicators of the ICS by types of economic activity, compared the dynamics of structural changes in the ICS regionally using the Krugman, Herfindahl, and Theil indices of regional specialisation, and developed a simultaneous model of the functioning of this sector by regions of Ukraine. In 2010–2021, the increase in the contribution of ICS to the fostering of Ukraine’s creative economy, achieving the sustainable development goals concerning economic growth, decent work and innovation was shown by the number of active business entities (% of the total), capital investments (% of the total), turnover of enterprises (% of the total), number of the employed at enterprises (% of the total), and value added at factor costs of enterprises (% of the total). In 2022, the war led to a broad adaptation of business entities in the ICS of Ukraine to operate in unfavourable conditions, and they managed to be profitable. Given the indices of regional specialisation, the transformation of the economic structure of Ukraine’s regions driven by the development of the ICS is insignificant, slow, and gradual due to the relative stability of their industrial specialisation. The simultaneous equations model explaining the functioning of the ICS by region of Ukraine includes four regression equations describing the value added at factors costs of enterprises, the number of active business entities and workers employed by them, and the structure of service exports in this sector. The research findings would be useful to elaborate sectoral national and regional public policy aimed at expanding the post-war growth of Ukraine’s creative economy and achieving the sustainable development goals.