'Net' sale of currency by NBU this week reaches maximum since start of war

The National Bank of Ukraine in the week from April 18 to April 22 again sold significantly more currency than it bought: dollars – for $546.7 million, euros – for EUR201.9 million, which is about 70% more than a week earlier, and is the maximum weekly intervention since the beginning of the war.

According to the information of the NBU on its website, it did not buy dollars this week and bought only EUR6 million.

As reported, in the first week and a half after the war started by Russia on February 24, the "net" purchase of foreign currency by the National Bank amounted to $690.3 million and EUR20 million, since the ban on the purchase of foreign currency had just been introduced, and the list of critical imports had not yet been significantly expanded.

However, in the following weeks, the volume of currency purchases by the central bank began to fall, while the volume of its sale increased. As a result, in the second half of March, "net sales" amounted to $540-620 million per week, and only in the first half of April it fell to $300-450 million.

A number of experts, in particular, former deputy chairman of the National Bank Oleg Churiy, who oversaw foreign exchange policy, proposed to revise the list of critical imports in the direction of its significant reduction, since today it covers 89% of merchandise imports in 2021.

In total, since the beginning of the year, the National Bank has purchased $1.780 billion and EUR91.2 million on the market, and sold $5.398 billion and EUR1.378 billion, in particular since the beginning of the war the purchase of foreign currency amounted to $1.123 billion and EUR91.2 million, and the sale was $2.628 billion and EUR1.378 billion.

Ukraine's international reserves as of April 1, 2022, according to the NBU, amounted to $28.11 billion, which is 2% more than at the beginning of March. By mid-April, as indicated by the National Bank, they fell to $27.4 billion.