NBU's gold & currency reserves decrease 4% in March

The National Bank of Ukraine reported on its website late yesterday that its gold and foreign currency reserves were down 4% in March to USD 25.4 bln. Since the beginning of the year, the NBU’s reserves have decreased 19.5%, or by USD 6.2 bln. During the month of March, the NBU sold USD 1.077 bln to support the hryvnya, down from USD 1.73 bln in February. Andrii Parkhomenko: We expect that the NBU will continue active currency interventions to meet demand for US dollars. We expect that the NBU’s reserves will shrink to USD 23.3 bln by yearend (given that Ukraine will receive USD 9.6 bln from the IMF under the standby loan agreement).