National Bank of Ukraine's net foreign exchange interventions fall 8.9% last week

MOSCOW. Feb 24 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine reduced dollar sales on the interbank market by $64.3 million or 8.9% to $661.2 million last week, Ukrainian media reported, quoting data from the regulator's website.

In the first four days of last week, the average daily negative balance of foreign exchange purchases by legal entities decreased to $79.3 million from $95.8 million in the same period of the previous week and was $317.3 million in total.

The negative balance between purchases and sales of forex by private individuals also decreased, to $16.4 million from $28.7 million the week before last, with non-cash currency sales exceeding purchases on all days.

The official hryvnia-dollar exchange rate weakened from UAH 43.1020/$1 at the beginning of the week to UAH 43.2667/$1 by the end of it.

The dollar also strengthened on the cash market, by approximately 13-14 kopecks over the past week, with the buy rate at UAH 42.96/$1 and sell rate at around UAH 43.34/$1.