The dollar exchange rate on the interbank market continues to grow against the background of low currency supply

Since the beginning of the new year, the dollar on the interbank market has gradually become more expensive, against the background of low currency supply from exporters, who have reduced purchases during the long weekend, and importers continue to actively buy foreign currency, having received a fairly large Hryvnia revenue from New Year's sales and the NBU has to actively fill the market with foreign currency to contain the exchange rate.

In the first short working week, the exchange rate added about 20 kopecks to 27.50/27.51 UAH/., but in two days of the second week of the year, the exchange rate increased by another 12 kopecks. up to 27.61/27.63 UAH/$.

The National Bank of Ukraine sold $100 million last week. to contain the growth of the exchange rate, and yesterday I sold another 4 40 million. but speculative demand for the currency remained high.

Additional pressure on the exchange rate was exerted by the payment of about UAH 10 billion by the Ministry of Finance at the beginning of the year on government bonds, and analysts hoped that market participants would buy new bonds again, but they partially went to buy foreign currency.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine held the first auction in 2022 for the sale of domestic government loan bonds, which managed to attract only UAH 3.9 billion to the budget, and the government had to raise rates on all securities, compared with UAH 15 billion. attracted on December 28.

The greatest demand was concentrated on government bonds with a circulation of 2 years, from the sale of which more than UAH 2 billion was raised, at a rate of 12.94% (+4 bps).

Market participants assume that in January and February, the Ministry of Finance will be more active in selling government bonds to raise funds to pay off debts, which should have a positive impact on the dollar exchange rate, as it was a year ago.

In 2022, Ukraine must pay 550.71 billion rubles. UAH, including on domestic debt – UAH 423.97 billion, on external debt – UAH 126.74 billion, including peak payments should be in February – UAH 66.31 billion, including on domestic debt – UAH 59.05 billion, on external debt – UAH 7.26 billion. Recall that in 2021, actual government borrowings amounted to 602.8 billion rubles. UAH, or 86.2% of the plan, and UAH 388.3 billion was attracted from the placement of government bonds to finance the state budget, including UAH 108.9 billion in foreign currency. UAH.

Payments for repayment of public debt for 2021 amounted to UAH 441.1 billion (94.2% of the plan), service payments – UAH 150 billion (98.6% of the plan).