Dragon Capital projects hryvnia to devaluate up to 10% in 2017

14:06, 26.01.2017 1 min read

Average annual devaluation of the hryvnia that was 15% in 2016 would slow to 10% in 2017, CEO of Dragon Capital investment company, President of the European Business Association (EBA) Tomas Fiala has said.

"This year we expect one-digit devaluation. Average annual exchange rate could be within UAH 27.50-28.50/$1," he said at the EBA conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

Fiala recalled that in 2016 average hryvnia exchange rate weakened to UAH 25.55/$1 and in 2015 – to UAH 21.83/$1.

He said that it is unlikely that the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) would allow the hryvnia to be higher than UAH 27/$1 to keep the deficit of the current account within 3% of GDP and buy around $1.5 billion to the reserves.

Commenting on the economic growth, he said that it could accelerate to 2.5% in 2017 from 1.8% in 2016.