National Bank Reserves Up 3.3% in August.

The National Bank’s (NBU) gold and foreign currency reserves grew by $596m in August to $18.7 bn, an increase of 3.3%, but were still down 3.6% ytd. On balance, the NBU purchased $500.5m of hard currency during the month from commercial banks (up from $315.8m in July), which bought $20m from the population (up from a negative balance of $11m in July). Tom Warner: The figures provide further evidence of Ukraine’s improved terms of trade thanks mainly to the recovery of steel prices.