Net sales of dollars by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) increased from $262.6 million last week to $680.4 million this week, which is in line with the figures at the very beginning of the year, according to the regulator.
According to the data, sales of foreign currency increased from $263.0 million to $680.9 million, while purchases remained at a meager level, although they increased slightly – from $0.37 million to $0.46 million.
The official hryvnia exchange rate weakened by almost 11 kopecks over the week, from 38.7998 UAH/$1 to 38.9075 UAH/$1. According to the regulator, the exchange rate declined in the first half of the week, reaching a historic low of 39.1399 UAH/$1 on Wednesday, after which it strengthened by 21 kopecks on Thursday and then by another 2 kopecks on Friday.
On the cash market, the hryvnia exchange rate weakened by 29 kopecks over the week. Unlike the interbank market, after strengthening from 39.31 UAH/$1 to 39.16 UAH/$1 on Thursday, it fell back to 39.30 UAH/$1 on Friday.
The dynamics of the negative balance between the volume of purchases and sales of foreign currency by the population corresponded to the fluctuations of the hryvnia at that time: from $15.4 million on Monday, it rose to $20.7 million on Wednesday.
As reported, on March 20, Ukraine received the first tranche of EUR4.5 billion from the EU under the Ukraine Facility program and $1.5 billion from Canada, while before that, all external revenues amounted to only $1.2 billion since the beginning of the year. In addition, on Friday night, the IMF Board of Directors approved the disbursement of the fourth tranche of $880 million under the EFF Extended Fund Facility program to Ukraine, which should arrive in two to three days, and on March 22, the budget received $230 million from Japan as part of the World Bank’s agricultural recovery project.
According to the National Bank’s forecasts, Ukraine may receive external financing worth $10 billion or even more from mid-March to the end of April, against the $37.3 billion in the state budget for the whole year.
At the same time, representatives of the National Bank noted at a press conference on March 14 that such irregular external financing would not lead to any shocks in the foreign exchange market.
In February, the NBU’s net sales fell to $1.50 billion from $2.53 billion in January, $3.55 billion in December, and $2.45 billion in November. However, due to low external support, international reserves declined by 3.8%, or $1.47 billion, to $37.05 billion in February after falling by 4.9%, or $1.98 billion in January.
In January, the National Bank lowered its forecast for Ukraine’s international reserves at the end of 2024 to $40.4 billion from $44.7 billion.
