The balance of payment in August has a surplus of $27 million, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has reported.

The NBU said that the deficit of the account of the balance of payment in August compared with July decreased to $601 million thanks to a decline in the deficit of trade with goods. "First of all, the large slowdown in the annual pace of growth of imports of goods, which was bigger than the slowdown in growth of exports, contributed to this," the central bank said.

According to the NBU, in January-August, the current account deficit was $2.1 billion, while in the same period last year the deficit was $833 billion.

The volume of exports of goods in August rose by 10.5%, to $3.7 billion. "A slight slowdown in export growth compared to July was primarily due to a reduction in the volume of metallurgical production and difficulties with cargo transportation by the Azov Sea," the central bank said. As a result, the growth in exports of metallurgical products slowed to 11.2% year-over-year. At the same time, the export of food products increased by 6.3% year-over-year and reached a record high for August due to the growth of world wheat prices and large volumes of harvested oilseeds.

In general, in January-August, exports increased by 11.6% compared to the corresponding period last year, to $28.2 billion.

According to the central bank, the volume of imports of goods in August amounted to almost $5 billion, but its growth slowed significantly, to 17.4% year-over-year.