Ukraine's balance of payments surplus widens 4.8-fold to $130 mln in Aug
KYIV. Oct 1 (Interfax) - Ukraine's balance of payments surplus widened 4.8-fild in August 2019 to $130 million, from $27 million in August 2018, according to preliminary data from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
There was a balance of payments surplus of $2.154 billion in January-August 2019 against $164 million in the eight months of last year.
Ukraine had current account deficit of $512 million or 3.4% of GDP in august 2019, up from $359 million or 28% of GDP in August 2018.
In August, merchandise imports of goods grew at a faster rate than exports, by 8.2% and 5.6% respectively, while in July imports of goods increased by 9.1% and exports by 20.8%.
Exports of goods in August amounted to $3.9 billion. Exports of food including cereals rose by 19.7%, compared with 36.5% in July, mineral products including ores by 38% compared with 37.6%.
Imports of goods amounted to $5.2 billion. The volume of energy imports decreased by 1.5%after falling 11.3% in July. Non-energy imports grew by 11.2% in August and 16.3% in July. The largest increase among non-energy imports was in imports of engineering industry products, by 24.8%.
In general, in January-August 2019 the current account deficit decreased compared to the same period in 2018 to $1.8 billion or 1.9% of GDP, from $2 billion or 2.5% of GDP a year previously.
Net external borrowings in August 2019 amounted to $509 million compared with $356 million in August 2018. In 8M 2019, net external borrowings amounted to $1.7 billion.