Fitch Ratings has affirmed Ukraine’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency (LTFC) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘B’ with a stable outlook, the rating agency said on its website.
The decision to partially buy back GDP warrants issued during the restructuring of Ukraine’s external debt in 2015 is aimed at reducing payments from the state budget, which next year should amount to $40 million, and for the entire circulation period of these securities may exceed $22 billion by 2040, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has said.
The fall in Ukraine’s GDP in January-July 2020 slowed down to 6.2% compared to 6.5% in the first half of this year, according to the economic activity review for the seven months of 2020, published by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture.
S&P Global Ratings affirmed its global scale long-term foreign and local currency sovereign ratings on Ukraine at ‘B’ and its Ukraine national scale ratings at ‘uaA’.
The decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) of Ukraine in 2020 will be 6%, but next year the economy will return to growth: in 2021 – by 4%, in 2022-2023 – by 3% annually, according to a forecast contained in the report of the S&P Global Ratings (S&P), which affirmed Ukraine’s ratings at ‘B/B.’
The task of financing the deficit of the state budget of Ukraine for 2021 of UAH 270 billion, or 6% of GDP, is feasible and can be accomplished without using the scheme for banks to purchase government domestic loan bonds at non-market rates thanks to refinancing loans from the National Bank, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has said.
Dragon Capital Investment Company has improved its forecast for the fall of the Ukrainian economy in 2020 from 7.2% of GDP to 5.5% of GDP, head of the company Tomas Fiala has said.
Ukraine’s GDP is forecast to contract by 5.5% in 2020, followed by a recovery of 3.0% in 2021, according to the September Regional Economic Prospects of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) published on Thursday.
The deficit of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-August 2020 halved compared with January-August 2019, to $2.43 billion from $4.96 billion, according to data from the State Customs Service presented on Tuesday. According to its statistics, the export of goods from Ukraine over the specified period compared to the same period in 2019 decreased 6.6%, to $ 30.91 billion, imports – 12.4%, to $33.34 billion.
Consumer prices in Ukraine in August 2020 decreased by 0.2% after falling by 0.6% in July and growing by 0.2% in June, 0.3% in May and 0.8% in April and March, the State Statistics Service has reported.
The draft state budget for 2021 provides for an increase in receipts by 9.4%, expenditure – by 5.1%, Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko has said.
The loan portfolio of Ukrainian banks in January-August 2020 expanded by 3.8% to UAH 1.14 trillion, including the volume of non-performing loans (NPL) – by 3.2%, to UAH 547.71 billion, according to a report posted on the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
The retail trade turnover in Ukraine in August 2020 increased by 8.7% compared to the same month in 2019 at comparable prices, while in the previous month the growth was 8.5%, the State Statistics Service has said.
According to the report, in August compared to July 2020 retail turnover increased by 2.2%.
