Ukraine in May 2017 saw a surplus of the balance of payments for the second consecutive month, having posted $357 million compared to $970 million a month before, the National Bank of Ukraine said on Friday.
"This was facilitated by a substantial net inflow of funds in the financial account, which compensated for the current account deficit in the balance of payments," the NBU noted.
The current account deficit in May, according to early reports, amounted to $194 million, there was a surplus of $293 million in May last year, the NBU said. The National Bank explains this deterioration by a significant increase in the volume of energy imports, which led to the expansion of the deficit of foreign trade in goods to $702 million against $133 million in May last year.
The NBU said that in May exports of goods grew by 21.4% year-over-year from 8.2% in April, reaching $3.204 billion, first thanks to resumption of growth of exports of metal products. Exports grew in all key commodity groups, in particular, food (30.2%), ferrous and nonferrous metals (18.7%), mineral products (29.3%), engineering products (12.2%) and chemical products (4.9%).
Imports in May rose by 40.9% year-over-year, to $3.906 billion, from 11.4% in April first due to a rise in imports of energy, the NBU said. Imports of mineral products in May soared by 2.1 times, which was linked to growth of imports of natural gas (by 7.3 times) and coal (2.4 times). Growth of imports of non-energy goods (by 27% year-over-year) was related to the increase in imports of engineering products (48.1%), chemical products (32.4%) and food (21.6%).
In January-May 2017 exports of goods grew by 27%, to $15.9 billion, while imports increased by 23.1%, to $18.32 billion.
In January-May 2017 the deficit of the current account of the balance of payment remained almost at the level of January-May 2016 - $1.065 billion compared to $1.034 billion, the NBU said.
The central bank said that net inflow of funds to the financial account totaled $556 million in May compared to $69 million in May 2016. The funds were injected to the private sector.
Off-bank cash currency fell by $378 million, net raising for portfolio investment decreased by $151 million and net debt on trade loans grew by $361 million, the NBU said.
In January-May 2017, net inflow to the financial account grew by 80% year-over-year, to $1.8 billion.
Thanks to the surplus of the consolidate balance of payment in May Ukraine's forex reserves continued growing and reached $17.6 billion as of June 1, 2017 or 3.7 months to cover imports.
