National Bank of Ukraine increases forex intervention by 9.9%, weakens hryvnia last week

MOSCOW. April 20 (Interfax) - The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) last week increased intervention on the interbank market for the first time over the past five weeks by $76.1 million, or 9.9%, to $842.0 million, Ukrainian media reported 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 $122.4 million from $100.3 million over the same period the previous week to total $489.6 million.

At the same time, the negative balance between purchases and sales of forex on the cash market from Saturday to Thursday significantly decreased to $17.8 million from $32.7 million the week before last, with non-cash forex sales exceeding purchases all those days.

The official hryvnia-dollar exchange rate, which started last week at UAH 43.4587/$1, weakened to UAH 43.6368/$1 by its end.

The exchange rate on the cash market declined by approximately UAH 0.13-0.14, its buy rate decreasing to around UAH 43.38/$1 and its sell rate to UAH 43.76/$1.