National Bank of Ukraine: Population now selling more foreign currency than buying

MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax) - Demand for foreign currency among the Ukrainian population has dropped significantly over the past few months, with the forex supply on the cash market outweighing the demand for it in recent days, National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Deputy Governor Yury Gelety said.

"We see a considerable decline in households' activity. At this point, we have been observing even supply alone in recent days," Ukrainian media quoted Gelety as saying at a press briefing in Kiev.

Average daily demand on the cash forex market declined to $17 million in April from $31 million in March and $41 million in February, he said.

There has also been a considerable increase in gross forex supply on the non-cash market, Gelety said, adding that it rose to $240 million per day in March from $213 million in February, while gross demand "has not shown any serious growth in terms of margin."

"We have been observing a revaluation of the hryvnia against the dollar in March-April," he said.

In these conditions, the NBU is closely watching the situation on global financial markets, where the tariff confrontation has added to volatillity and the dollar is declining against the euro, he said.

"Despite the revaluation in the hryvnia-dollar pair, since the dollar is the main currency the hryvnia is pegged to, the hryvnia's exchange rate against the euro and other currencies is calculated based on cross-rates. Therefore, we are now observing the hryvnia weakening against the euro," Gelety said.

According to NBU data, net forex purchases by the population declined to $720 million in March from $958 million in February and $1.48 billion in January.