The National Bank of Ukraine that had obliged the exporters to transfer the half of their foreign currency earnings into the hryvnia currency a year ago has increased the requirement of the mandatory sale to 100% of foreign exchange earnings from abroad.

The regulator has not commented on the decision, but bankers believe that the Central Bank of Ukraine plans to increase the supply of the foreign exchange in the market to protect the hryvnia exchange rate that began to fall in the autumn due to the growing demand of importers, and to prevent further loss of foreign exchange reserves, which declined to 2.5 months of imports due to payments external debt.

The decision of the NBU proclaims: “Require the mandatory sale of the foreign currency earnings from abroad in favor of the legal entities that are not banks and individual entrepreneurs in the interbank currency market of Ukraine.” The National Bank demanded the conversion of only “foreign currency earnings of the residents from the sale of goods under the foreign economic contracts” in the current edition, and that means that the compulsory sale will be subject to all the received amounts to currency accounts (including non-resident contributions to the charter capital of Ukrainian companies and the amount of loans received in a foreign currency).

It should be noted that the adopted on September 25 document was filed with the Ministry of Justice on October 9 and will come into force after the publication (to date it has not been published yet).