The central bank has stated it has sufficient resources to maintain the rate stability, according to KyivWeekly. In the H1 2011, Ukraine actively attracted hard currency financing. Placement of Eurobonds provided US $2.75 bn for the government. Privatization of Ukrtelecom (in March, Austrian EPIC paid UAH 10.57 bn for 92.79% stake in the national telecom monopoly) served as another source of hard currency inflow into the country. As a result, the surplus of the financial account was US $5.2 bn in January – July with the NBU’s reserves nearing record high. As of September 1, they totaled US $38.205 bn, covering currently 4.5 months of import.
Ukraine should not expect to receive the IMF money this year. Roman Shpek, a member of the NBU Council and Presidential advisor, warned that the country will hardly obtain the next tranche under the stand-by loan program before next February. “It will be transferred after the Fund sees the real national budget for the next year and also real rather than declared fulfillment of the budget deficit for the previous year,” he emphasized in a KW interview.
“Currency outflow as a result of planned repayments of US $0.6 bn is planned to be covered by placement of new Eurobonds for the amount of US $1 bn. As for the VTB loan, most likely it will be extended or rescheduled (under the loan agreement, repayment can be extended three times and this one will be the last). Nonetheless, delays in IMF financing could complicate attraction of new loans and make them more expensive,” Svitlana Rekrut, an analyst with Concorde Capital told KW.
