Ukraine's international reserves increased by $3.863 billion, or 9.7%, in December, reaching $43.788 billion as of January 1, 2025, according to preliminary data from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
"In December 2024, they rose by 9.7% compared to November, driven by currency inflows from international partners that exceeded the net currency sales by the National Bank and the country's foreign currency debt repayments," the NBU reported on its website on Tuesday.
In total, over the past year, international reserves grew by $3.273 billion, or 8.1%.
According to the NBU, net international reserves increased by $3.153 billion, or 12.2% in December, and overall for 2024, they rose by $0.712 billion, or 2.5%, reaching $29.094 billion.
As of the beginning of this year, the structure of reserves consisted of 67.1% in securities, 27.6% in cash, correspondent accounts, and deposits, and 5.3% in monetary gold, compared to 69.7%, 25.9%, and 4.4%, respectively, a year earlier.
It is noted that in December, a record $9.461 billion was deposited into the government’s currency accounts at the NBU, including $4.411 billion in macro-financial assistance from the EU, $3.935 billion from the World Bank, including through the DPL mechanism from the USA, Japan, and the UK, and $1.089 billion from the IMF.
At the same time, $0.133 billion was paid for servicing and repaying the state debt in foreign currency. Additionally, Ukraine paid the International Monetary Fund $0.252 billion.
Moreover, the National Bank also sold a record $5.309 billion on the currency market, while buying back only $0.4 million into reserves.
"The net currency sale by the NBU in December amounted to $5.309 billion, nearly doubling compared to November. The increase in currency sales interventions by the NBU last month was primarily linked to the traditional seasonal factor – the activation of budget expenditures and business operations at year-end," the central bank indicated.
Finally, as clarified by the NBU, in December, the value of financial instruments increased by $92 million due to revaluation.
"The current volume of international reserves covers 5.5 months of future imports," the press release stated.
It was specified that last year Ukraine received approximately $42 billion in global financial support. The largest financial assistance came from the EU – $17.5 billion, the USA – $6.8 billion, the World Bank – $6.1 billion, the IMF – $5.3 billion, Japan – $4.3 billion, and Canada – $1.8 billion. Additionally, in 2024, the country received over $3.5 billion through the placement of foreign currency government bonds.
According to the National Bank, this, along with international assistance, helped offset the country’s payments for servicing and repaying foreign currency debt ($6.7 billion) and IMF payments ($3.4 billion), compensate for the NBU's net currency interventions ($34.8 billion), which were conducted to address the structural deficit in the currency market and to smooth excessive exchange rate fluctuations under the managed flexibility of the exchange rate, as well as to build up international reserves to a sufficient level to further support exchange rate stability.
As previously reported, at the end of October, the NBU revised its forecast for international reserves at the end of 2024-2026 upwards by $2.4-3.7 billion. According to its updated expectations, international reserves were projected to reach $43.6 billion by the end of 2024, while this year they were expected to decrease to $41 billion.