National Bank of Ukraine's forex interventions up 12.5%, dollar strengthens 1.8% last week

MOSCOW. Jan 12 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) increased dollar sales on the interbank market by $79.0 million, or 12.5% week-on-week to $712.1 million last week, Ukrainian media reported, citing the statistics published on the regulator's website.

In the first four days of last week, the average daily negative balance of currency purchases and sales by legal entities decreased to $67.3 million from $69.3 million for the same period the week before, amounting to $269.3 million in total, the NBU said.

Meanwhile, the cash market's negative balance from Saturday to Thursday grew to $46.5 million from $21.9 million the week before last. Purchases of non-cash forex were larger than its sales for all of these days.

The official hryvnia-dollar exchange rate, which began last week at UAH 42.2942/$1, daily weakened to a new all-time low of less than UAH 43/$1, ending the week at the level of UAH 43.0757/$1.

The hryvnia's official exchange rate against the euro also weakened 1.1% from UAH 49.5794/EUR1 to UAH 50.1444/EUR1 over the week, during which it dropped for the first time below an important threshold of UAH 50/EUR1, weakening to an all-time low of UAH 50.1762/EUR1.

The dollar exchange rate on the cash market followed the trajectory of the official exchange rate and gained nearly 77 kopecks in total over the week, with the buy rate reaching UAH 42.84/$1, and the sell rate UAH 43.26/$1. The dollar exchange rate on the black market reached UAH 43.4-43.5/$1 on Monday. Meanwhile, the euro strengthened by up to 80 kopecks, with the buy rate now at UAH 50/EUR1 and the sell rate at UAH 50.73/EUR1.