REUTERS
Ukraine's international reserves in January 2017 shrank by 0.6%, to US$15.445 billion as of February 1, 2017, according to the website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
The reduction in the reserves was due to temporary seasonal factors on the interbank forex market and payments to service state debt, the NBU said.
The National Bank said it sold $235.8 million in January as interventions on the interbank forex market, and bought $157.8 million there, the difference being $78 million.
In addition, the NBU channeled $138 million from the reserves into servicing and repayment of state and government-guaranteed debt in foreign currency.
Read alsoNBU releases 2-year inflation forecastAs reported, the international reserves as of the beginning of February covered 3.4 months of future imports, which was sufficient to meet liabilities and current operations handled by the government and the NBU.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the international reserves in 2016 expanded by 17%, to $15.539 billion.
The National Bank expects the forex and gold reserves may grow to $21.3 billion as of the end of 2017, and further to $27.1 billion in 2018.