The foreign exchange reserves of Ukraine as of December 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, amounted to $30.549 billion (in equivalent), which is 3% more than at the beginning of November this year ($29.654 billion), according to the data of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) published on Tuesday.
“As of December 1, 2021, according to preliminary data, Ukraine’s foreign exchange reserves amounted to $30.549. In November, they grew by 3%, primarily due to the receipt of the second tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Stand-By Arrangement in the amount of SDR 500 million,” the NBU said.
As the National Bank said, the dynamics of the reserves in November was affected by the operations to manage the state debt: the total volume of payments for servicing and repaying the state and state-guaranteed debt in foreign currency amounted to $481.7 million (in equivalent).
A total of $251.3 million was spent on servicing and redeeming government domestic loan bonds, $145.2 million on servicing eurobonds, and the rest on meeting other government obligations in foreign currency.
In addition, in November, the government and the National Bank paid $145.2 million to the IMF.
In November, FX earnings in favor of the government amounted to $493.1 million (in equivalent), including EUR 250 million as a tranche from Cargill Financial Services International, Inc. and EUR 167.4 million from the placement of government domestic loan bonds.
The dynamics of reserves was also influenced by the operations of the NBU in the interbank FX market. To smooth out excessive fluctuations, the National Bank bought out $1.178 billion in the foreign exchange market and sold $792.6 million. In general, at the end of November, the volume of net purchases of foreign currency by the National Bank in the interbank FX market amounted to $385.2 million.
In addition, the dynamics of the indicator was influenced by the revaluation of financial instruments (changes in the market value and the exchange rate of the hryvnia compared to foreign currencies): last month their value fell by $135.6 million (in equivalent), according to the NBU data.
As the regulator said, the FX reserve coverage is four months of current external payments (CXP). This is enough to meet the obligations of Ukraine, the current operations of the government and the National Bank.
In addition, the NBU said that Ukraine’s net international reserves (NIR) in November grew by $290 million, or 1.4%, to $20.327 billion.
As reported, at the beginning of 2021, Ukraine’s FX reserves amounted to $29.113 billion, NIR was $18.114 billion.
