National Bank of Ukraine reduces forex intervention by 5.6% over past week

MOSCOW. March 30 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reduced intervention on the interbank market last week by $75.3 million, or 5.6%, to $1.269 billion, Ukrainian media said citing a report on the NBU's website.

Over the first four days of last week, the average daily negative balance between forex purchases and sales by legal entities increased to $199.4 million from $170.9 million over the same period the week before to total $797.6 million.

At the same time, the negative balance between purchases and sales of forex on the cash market from Saturday to Thursday decreased to $31.9 million from $57.9 million the week before last, with non-cash forex sales exceeding purchases in that period.

The official hryvnia-dollar exchange rate weakened last week to UAH 43.8850/$1 from UAH 43.8200/$1.

The hryvnia's exchange rate on the cash market almost did not change last week, its buy rate staying at UAH 43.71/$1 and its sell rate growing by slightly less than UAH 0.02 to nearly UAH 44.10/$1.