Net forex sales by National Bank of Ukraine fall more than half in week

KYIV. April 11 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Net foreign currency sales by the National Bank of Ukraine more than halved to $211 million and 84.9 million euros in the week April 4 to 8 from $282.1 million and 299.8 million euros the previous week.

The NBU said on its website that it bought only $11.5 million and 5.5 million euros, while the sales amounted to $222.5 million and 90.3 million euros.

Net purchases of foreign currency by the National Bank in the first week and a half after February 24 amounted to $690.3 million and 20 million euros, since a ban on the purchase of foreign currency had just been introduced, and the list of critical imports had not yet been significantly expanded.

However, in the following weeks, currency purchases began to fall, while the sales increased. The week before last was the first when net sales stopped growing, and volumes even decreased slightly compared to the week before, to the equivalent of $611.9 million from $618.6 million a week earlier, while last week they fell more than half.

Ukraine's international reserves grew 2% to $28.107 billion from $27.538 billion during March 2022, according to preliminary data.