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International reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) are projected to increase to $11-12.8 billion at year-end, which is less than $18 billion as provided for under a new cooperation program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to experts of Analytical Group Da Vinci AG.
"We are skeptical about the regulator’s plans to restore international reserves to $18 billion by the end of this year. Such estimates are based on negative foreign trade outlook. Therefore, the forecast of international reserves will range at $11-12.8 billion," according to the Group’s analytical report, available to UNIAN.
At the same time, experts noted that Ukraine is about to leave a "redzone" of the risk as the replenishment and increase in international reserves comes along the timely service of the public debt and a persistent negative foreign trade outlook regarding Ukraine.
Experts believe that Ukraine’s economic recovery and new growth of its reserves will take a fairly long period, while the reserves dynamics will be entirely determined by the progress in cooperation between Ukraine andinternational financial institutions in view of the need to restructure the market for domestic exports and replace virtually all Russia-oriented exports.
As UNIAN reported earlier, theNBU reserves rose in June by 3.5%, or $346 million, to $10.264 billion.
In 2014, the NBU reserves fell by $12.883 billion, or 63.1%, to $7.533 billion, as of January 01, 2015.
According to the NBU, international reserves are forecast to grow to $18.2 billion at the end of 2015, and to $22.1 billion at the end of 2016 thank to disbursements under the IMF program.