Ukraine gross reserves rise 0.9% to USD 18.9 bln in November

6 December 2017

Ukraine's gross international reserves rose 0.9%, or USD 170 mln, to USD 18.9 bln driven by the sale of local Eurobonds (USD 664 mln) and net dollar internvetions (USD 138.9 mln net purchase), the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reported on Dec. 5. The main spending consisted of USD 447.1 mln in redemptions to the IMF and USD 358.3 mln in repayments and servicing of state debt (USD 282.2 mln on local Eurobonds). Also the NBU returned USD 100 mln under SWAP operations.

 

By the end of November, gross international reserves covered 3.7 months of future imports.

 

Alexander Paraschiy: The rise in gross reserves was a positive surprise considering we believed reserves would have slid on IMF redemptions and Eurobond repayments. Also we assumed the NBU interventions would depress reserves amid persistent depreciation pressure at the ForEx. The latest local Eurobonds issue covered almost all external repayments but it’s not clear how it happened that the ForEx generated surplus amid the trend of a widening trade deficit. 

 

The November results mean that we can expect better gross reserves in 2017 than we initially expected (USD 18.0 bln).  We still anticipate reserves slightly dropping in December (to be partially offset by local Eurobond placements) and we project USD 18.6 bln in reserves by the end of 2017.