National Bank of Ukraine's forex interventions decline over past week, hryvnia strengthens against dollar

MOSCOW. April 13 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has reduced the foreign exchange interventions on the interbank market for the third week in a row, down by $122.6 million, or 13.8%, to $765.9 million last week, Ukrainian media reported, citing statistics on the regulator's website.

As noted, the average daily negative balance of foreign exchange purchases and sales by legal entities declined to $100.3 million over the first four days of last week, down 22.4% from $129.3 million in the same period the week before.

The negative balance on the retail forex market increased to $32.7 million over Saturday-Thursday from $28.2 million the week before last. Moreover, on Thursday, for the first time since early April, the population sold more non-cash currency than they bought - by $2.4 million more.

The official hryvnia-dollar exchange rate strengthened last week, from UAH 43.6549/$1 to UAH 43.4653/$1.

A similar trend was observed on the cash market, where the hryvnia strengthened by four to six kopecks last week: the purchase rate reached approximately UAH 43.25/$1, while the sale rate reached UAH 43.64/$1.