KIEV: The surplus of Ukraine’s balance of payment in August 2015 grew to $513 million from $438 million in July, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) published the tentative data on Wednesday. The central bank said that in January-August 2015 the deficit of the balance of payment fell to $349 million, which is more than 13 times better than in January-August 2014.
The central bank said that the surplus of the current account in August was $60 million compared to $65 million in July, despite a rise in the deficit in the balance of foreign trade with goods to $229 million from 4138 million a month earlier.
“The low comparison base of the previous year due to the escalation of the military conflict in eastern Ukraine would influence all the rest elements of the current account,” the central bank said. The pace of exports decline in August slowed to 28% from 35.3% in July, and that for imports – to 27.2% from 36.3%.
NBU said that in August the surplus of trade with services ($160 million) was almost unchanged compared to the previous months. In annual terms the decline of exports and imports of services slowed to 17% and 19% respectively. Along with the comparison base, a rise of exports of goods by pipelines by 42% thanks to the lifting of restrictions on gas transportation via Ukraine by Russia influenced the slow in the fall of exports in annual terms.
Since early 2015, the deficit of the current account amounted to $133 million, which is 17.6 times better than a year ago. The deficit of foreign trade with goods decreased by 52.4%, to $1.86 billion.
The NBU said that net foreign borrowing in the financial account in August grew to $444 million from $330 million in July and mainly came from borrowing by the public sector, in particular, receiving of $1.7 billion of the second tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Extended Fund Facility Arrangement (EFF) and $500 million from the World Bank under the Second Financial Sector Development Policy Loan.
The NBU said that net conversion of yuans within the currency swap with the Central Bank of China in August totaled $90 million, and $148 million were converted under the currency swap with Citibank.
The central bank said that foreign direct investment (FDI) of $665 million were mainly sent to recapitalize banks, although investment were balanced by payments of debts on credits from parent banks.
“Rollover for long-term liabilities of the private sector fell to 16% – the minimum figure in 2015 (19% in July),” NBU said. The amount of off-bank cash fell for the fifth month in a row, and grew to $291 million from $93 million in July, which is linked to stabilization of the situation on the currency market.
