Ukraine gross foreign reserves reach USD 12 bln, Yatsenyuk says

Ukraine’s gross international reserves have reached USD 12 bln, said on Aug. 26 Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as reported by the Ukrainian News agency. The official data on gross international reserves for August is scheduled for Sept. 4. As of end of July, gross international reserves reached USD 10.4 bln.

Alexander Paraschiy: A USD 1.7 bln wire from the IMF in August was the main source of gross international reserves growth. Though the statistics is positive, Ukraine’s further economic prospects are uncertain in the context of the current global equities turmoil. A deal that has been nearly reached with creditors on debt restructuring will save a few billion U.S. dollars for the country (at least USD 1.1 bln in Eurobonds due September and October). However, some part of those savings might be shaved off by Ukraine’s external trade deficit widening on the global commodity selloff.

So far we do not expect a strong negative effect of current global market tendencies on Ukraine. So we are only slightly worsening our gross international reserves forecast to USD 11.0 bln by the end of 2015 (and USD 14.0 bln in case Ukraine does not repay USD 3.0 bln debt to Russia in late 2015), from USD 11.5 bln estimated previously.