According to the Ministry of Economy, the average annual exchange rate of the hryvnia to the US dollar in 2023 is expected to be 37.5 UAH/$1 in the draft state budget for 2024, compared to 32.3 UAH/$1 last year.
For 2024, the draft state budget provides for an average annual exchange rate of 41.4 UAH/$1.
As reported, the average annual exchange rate for this year during the adoption of the state budget for 2023 last fall was expected to be 42.2 UAH/$1, and the exchange rate at the end of 2023 was 45.8 UAH/$1.
At the same time, the National Bank has kept the official hryvnia exchange rate fixed at 36.57 UAH/$1 since the end of July 2022. On the cash market, the exchange rate has stabilized at around 38 UAH/$1 this year, while last year it was falling to 39 UAH/$1 and even more.
Over the past week, following the announcement by Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko of the forecast for the average annual exchange rate for 2024, the hryvnia has fallen to 38.3 UAH/$1 on the cash market.
In a September survey, members of the European Business Association predicted an average annual exchange rate of 41 UAH/$1 for 2024, while a year ago they expected 43 UAH/$1 for 2023.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) proposes to raise the corporate income tax rate from 18% to 38% in 2023-2024, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said.
“Our forecast is that additional budget revenues if the current rate is raised to 38% will total more than UAH 20 billion this year and next year,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to him, such a tax design will have a limited impact on macrofinancial stability and at the same time support Ukraine’s defense capabilities.
The NBU governor, citing the monitoring of the financial condition and the results of the assessment of the banks’ stability, believes that financial institutions are quite capable of making additional payments in the current environment. According to the regulator, the tax rate increase will have a limited impact on lending and deposit rates, given the banks’ sufficient margins.
As reported, the National Bank considers additional taxation of banks to be a justified temporary step in view of the war, seeing financial and legal grounds for this, but proposes to increase the tax rate on banks’ profits instead of taxing net interest income as proposed by MPs.
According to Pyshnyi, this is the version the NBU will discuss with the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy in the near future.
He also said that the market participants with whom the central bank communicated were sympathetic to this position.
According to the NBU, the net profit of 64 operating Ukrainian banks in the first seven months of this year amounted to UAH 83.2 billion, while the income tax was UAH 14.4 billion, including UAH 34.4 billion and UAH 7.9 billion for PrivatBank, and UAH 18.8 billion and UAH 0.1 billion for four other state-owned banks.
In late August, MPs submitted to the Rada a bill to tax banks’ net interest income at a rate of 5% in 2024-2026 (in addition to corporate income tax), which could bring in about UAH 10 billion to the state budget next year, according to their estimates. In the first half of 2023, banks’ interest income reached UAH 141 billion, including UAH 73.5 billion from transactions with government securities, and net interest income for the same period amounted to UAH 93.6 billion, up 75% compared to the pre-war period of 2021.
Canada will provide CAD33 million ($24.5 million) for a joint initiative led by the United Kingdom to purchase additional air defense equipment for Ukraine, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing Canadian National Defense Minister William Blair.
In his statement, Blair said that this contribution is part of the CAD500 million military aid to Kyiv, which Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in June.
The report notes that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Ottawa has provided more than CAD8 billion in aid, including about CAD1.8 billion in military assistance. The partnership, which also includes the United States, the Netherlands, and Denmark, aims to purchase hundreds of short- and medium-range air defense missiles and related systems.
The State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” is launching a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the Prozorro electronic platform, said the company’s CEO Yuriy Bolokhovets.
“Forestry enterprises have always procured harvesting services under direct contracts. We are planning to fully transfer them to open tenders. This is several billion hryvnias a year. In the fourth quarter, a pilot project will be launched in several regions. Specialists from the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” are analyzing the market and working on developing technical requirements,” Bolokhovets said.
According to him, the reform is expected to create a competitive market, attract the maximum number of players, invest in modern equipment and new technologies, create additional jobs, increase contributions to budgets of all levels, reduce illegal logging, and improve the quality of work.
“This is the fourth stage of the anti-corruption program we are implementing. At the first stage, we banned direct contracts and transferred timber sales to specialized exchanges. At the second stage, we transferred the main purchases of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” – from fuel to road construction – to Prozorro. At the third stage, we abandoned unprofitable processing facilities and started transferring them to the State Property Fund,” explained the head of the company.
Mr. Bolokhovets noted that the anti-corruption program of the Forests of Ukraine also includes strengthening control tools and digitalization. However, the problem of corruption can only be overcome by institutional reforms, the creation of a system that minimizes the “official factor” and introduces transparent and open rules of the game for business, he emphasized.
Oil prices continue to rise on Monday after a steady rise last week.
Traders’ attention is focused on the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary (Canada), where Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman will be one of the key speakers.
The cost of November futures for Brent on the London ICE Futures exchange by 8:10 a.m. is $94.47 per barrel, which is $0.54 (0.57%) higher than at the close of the previous session. On Friday, the price of these contracts increased by $0.23 (0.3%) to $93.93 per barrel.
October futures for WTI in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) rose by $0.54 (0.57%) to $94.47 per barrel by this time. As a result of the previous trading, the price of these contracts rose by $0.61 (0.7%) to $90.77 per barrel, the highest since November 7.
Last week, the price of Brent increased by 3.6%, and WTI by 3.7%.
Since the beginning of this year, Brent has risen by 10%. Saudi Arabia’s decision to extend its voluntary 1 million bpd oil production cut by the end of 2023 has raised concerns about a supply shortage in the market, while demand prospects appear increasingly favorable as the likelihood of a US recession diminishes.
“Traders’ focus will shift to the Federal Reserve meeting this week, but the problem of oil supply shortages and the growing inventory drawdown is supporting bullish sentiment in the market,” said Vanda Insights founder Vandana Hari.
The Slovak government has decided to extend the ban on imports of wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds from Ukraine until the end of the year, Prime Minister Ludovit Odor said.
“The European Commission did not extend the ban on imports of four commodities from Ukraine, including wheat, after September 15, so the government decided to ban their imports at the national level. And this is until the end of the year and for the same four products, i.e. wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower seeds. We must prevent excessive pressure on the Slovak market to remain fair to domestic farmers,” Odor said, according to Aktuality.
According to him, this step of the government is also a reaction to a similar approach of Poland and Hungary. Odor emphasized that the Slovak government will continue to work intensively with the European Commission and EU member states to find a pan-European and systemic solution while the national ban on imports of these four products is in effect. He stated the government’s readiness to lift the ban in this case.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Slovakia added that this decision is related to the protection of the domestic market and is a logical response to the practice of neighboring countries that adopt unilateral import bans.
“The ban does not apply to the transportation of goods through our territory, which expresses our solidarity with Ukraine and the placement of its goods in target markets,” the ministry added.
