The net supply of foreign currency from the Ukrainian population since the beginning of the year as of May 11 amounted to $970 million, Head of the Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Bohdan Danylyshyn has said.
“Net sales of foreign currency by the population from the beginning of the year to May 11 amounted to $706 million in cash transactions and $264 million in non-cash transactions,” he wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
Danylyshyn said that in May the exchange rate of the hryvnia on the interbank FX market continued to strengthen for the third week in a row, reaching its high in the past month and a half amid an increase in the supply of foreign currency from the banks’ clients.
According to him, the FX reserves of the NBU as of May 11 amounted to $27.9 billion, which is 4%, or $1.2 billion less than at the beginning of the year, and 0.4%, or $100 million, less than at the beginning of the month.
The head of the NBU Council added that in April, the volume of transactions of banks’ clients with non-cash foreign currency, taking into account swap transactions, decreased 12.1% as for transactions for the sale of foreign currency and by 8.5% as for transactions for the purchase of foreign currency.
At the same time, the prevalence of demand for foreign currency over supply in respect of client operations in April amounted to $520 million (including $286.5 million on a forward basis) and was satisfied mainly through the sale of foreign currency by banks.
Deputy Minister of Economy, Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai agreed to hold a Trade and Investment Council.
“We talked about the need to strengthen dialogue on climate change, non-tariff rules for industrial and food products both in the context of strengthening the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on the bilateral track. We agreed to hold a Council on Trade and Investment and talk,” Kachka wrote on Facebook on Wednesday following a discussion with Tai on key trade issues held on May 11.
During the conversation, Tai expressed support for the idea of free production of vaccines (waiver), he said.
“We expressed our support. Ukraine is ready to act as a compressor of the waiver initiative and to convince the EU that it is necessary,” Kachka said.
With regard to duties on metallurgical products, the United States, according to Kachka, is ready to seek an individual approach to metal trading in order to overcome the problem of overcapacity.
“We explained that the duties and the EU measures applied later ended in the opposite direction in terms of overcapacity [excess capacity]. In general, Ukraine is more likely a partner of the West in transforming metallurgy,” Ukrainian trade representative added.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 12/05/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of May 12
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Ukrainian enterprises in January-April this year increased the export of ferrous scrap 7.5 times compared to the same period last year, to 86,979 tonnes, including 37,874 tonnes of scrap in April.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service on Tuesday, in monetary terms, the export of scrap metal grew 10 times, to $30.712 million.
At the same time, in January-April of this year, the country increased the import of scrap metal in kind by 36.1%, to 7,755 tonnes. In monetary terms, the import of scrap increased 2.1 times, to $13.009 million.
The import of scrap metal in January-April of this year was carried out mainly from Turkey (61.77% of deliveries in monetary terms), the Russian Federation (29.56%) and the United States (3.13%); export – to Turkey (94.65%), Lithuania (1.32%) and Germany (1.25%).
Average retail prices for petrol in Ukraine in the period from April 30 to May 11 grew by UAH 0.3-0.5 per liter, according to the data of the A-95 consulting group (Kyiv).
So, the average retail prices for petrol grade A-92 during the May holidays increased by UAH 0.31 per liter, to UAH 28.09 per liter, A-95 – by UAH 0.45 per liter, to UAH 29.10 per liter, premium A-95 – by UAH 0.47 per liter, to UAH 30.67 per liter.
In addition, retail prices for diesel fuel from April 30 to May 11 grew by UAH 0.07, to UAH 28.29 per liter, while prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fell by UAH 0.03 per liter, to UAH 15.77 per liter.
As reported, on April 2, the Cabinet of Ministers and most of the country’s large filling station networks signed a memorandum on the creation of fair competition in the petroleum product market, as well as on meeting the needs of consumers during the period of quarantine restrictions.
According to Interfax-Ukraine, before the signing of the document, representatives of the authorities were actively negotiating with large networks of filling stations, persistently offering them to lower the prices for petroleum products that have increased in recent months. In particular, they were advised to set a price of up to UAH 30 per liter for A-95 petrol. As a result, after the signing of the document, the chains dropped the price of petrol by UAH 0.2-1 per liter.
At the same time, during the May holidays, retail petrol prices have already won back this decline. On May 11, the Cabinet of Ministers, by resolution No. 450 dated March 29, 2021, introduced a declaration of an increase in retail prices for petrol and diesel fuel in excess of 1%. According to the document, petrol grades A-92 and A-95, as well as diesel fuel, are included in the list of socially important goods.
