Ksenia Obukhovska (UNIAN)
The National Bank of Ukraine announced a plan of
gradual forex liberalization, the State Property Fund sold a Ukrainian bank to a
Chinese investor, while the Cabinet launched an attack on the
"space-high" bills for central heating and decided how on how the
country’s healthcare system would be funded – these are the main economic news
of this week.
A sharp issue of continuation of cooperation between
Ukraine and the IMF rose once again this week. Finance Minister Oleksandr
Danyliuk said in his comment to UNIAN he hoped that the meeting of the Board of
Directors of Ukraine’s key creditor to assess the EFF implementation by Ukraine
would be held “before the end of the year”.
He also said that representatives of
the Fund were satisfied with the draft state budget for 2017 and with the pace
of discussions on other issues, in particular pension and land reform.
Meanwhile, Danyliuk’s colleagues from the National
Bank are more pessimistic. NBU Governor Valeria Gontareva, who in recent weeks
has been reflecting tough attacks of her political opponents, noted that the
risks were too high of not receiving the IMF tranche this year. She added that
the refusal of the International Monetary Fund and other international donors
to support Ukraine would result in an inevitable decline in international
reserves and threaten financial stability in the country. In accordance with
the Extended Fund Facility, next year Ukraine should receive four IMF tranches
worth a total of $5.4 billion. At the same time, Kyiv will have to pay $2.6 bln
for the servicing and repayment of earlier loans. In this situation, the
continued support by the IMF and other international donors is critical –
otherwise, the reserves will start melting. A positive decision of the Board of
Directors of the IMF depends on the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the state
budget for 2017 in the first week of December.
And if the budget is not adopted the next plenary
week, the National Bank will have for the fourth time this year to revise its
forecast for foreign exchange reserves toward their decrease. At the moment,
the regulator predicts growth of reserves at the end of the year to $17.5
billion but this forecast includes obtaining $600 mln from the EU and $1.3 bln
from the IMF. However, the regulator’s reserves have already started to shrink,
despite the fact that in November the NBU was actively buying dollars in the
foreign exchange auctions. In the past month, according to preliminary data,
the reserves decreased by 1.2%, or $0.2 billion. And the hryvnia last month
also lost its positions against the dollar by 0.6%.
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