Ukraine's integration into automotive industry value chains of the European Union

The subject of the study is peculiarities of the Ukraine’s specialization development in the supply of wire sets for vehicles to EU countries. Topicality. Since Ukraine received autonomous trade preferences from the European Union on April 23, 2014 and the EU–UA Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement entered into the force in 2016, the EU has become Ukraine’s largest trading partner. The trade relations development took place not only due to the increase in exports of traditional Ukrainian goods and services, but also as a result of the deployment of a number of TNCs in Ukraine to manufacture components for vehicles, primarily various wires sets. In 2018–2019, the export of wire sets from Ukraine to the EU reached 1 billion US dollars, taking one of the leading positions among the items supplied to the European market. The purpose of the article is to assess pros and cons for the Ukrainian economy from development of regional specialization in production and export of wire sets for the EU automotive industry. Methodology. The study is based on application of methods of analysis and synthesis in determining key features of Ukraine’s integration into the global value chains of European automotive concerns. Results. The dynamics and geographical structure of wire sets exports from Ukraine to the EU are analyzed. The history of wire sets production outsourcing by world automotive concerns to Ukraine is summarized. The advantages and disadvantages for Ukraine from choosing the current model of integration into the international production chains of the automotive industry are identified. Conclusions. The development of specialization in twisting wires for vehicles provided Ukraine with an inflow of foreign investment, the preservation and creation of new jobs and stable foreign exchange earnings of up to 1 billion US dollars. At the same time, Ukraine has found itself in the role of a “middle link of conveyor” that performs relatively simple functions using cheap manual labor and is completely dependent on the supply of toll raw materials, while its the national car industry is in deep decline