The National Bank has raised its forecast for Ukraine’s international reserves at the end of this year to $38.3 billion from $34.5 billion in its April forecast.
According to the NBU’s updated estimates presented at a briefing on Thursday, Ukraine’s international reserves will reach $42.6 billion at the end of next year and $44.1 billion a year later, while in April the National Bank gave more modest estimates of $36.1 billion and $37.1 billion, respectively.
The NBU expects that this year the external financing of the state budget alone will amount to $42 bln, and next year it estimates such a need at $37 bln.
According to its forecasts, such a large-scale financial external support will fully cover the negative current account balance, which this year and next year the NBU estimates at $11 bln, $17.2 bln and $16.1 bln, respectively.
As reported earlier, due to a significant inflow of external financing, Ukraine’s international reserves rose by 4.5 percent in June to a record high of $39.00bn.
