The demand for foreign currency will continue to fall – expert

This was stated by the expert of the information-analytical center FOREX CLUB in Ukraine Maria Salnykova.

She said that the net balance of cash foreign currency purchases was negative for the first time in eight months and amounted to 259.1 million dollars.

The main reason for this was the decline of interest in the currency by the population against a sharp rise in the dollar since the beginning of this year, the expert said.

At the same time, sales of foreign currency in May could be reduced due to political instability before the presidential election.

According to Salnykova, the fact that after the IMF loan, the dollar in the country did not show a steady decline will also negatively affect the behaviour of the population. 

Moreover, in her opinion, people are unlikely to buy foreign currency, since wage growth rate does not increase, while inflation pressure increases.

Thus, the main component of the consumer basket – food – in April showed price increase by 4.2%.

The rate of general inflation in the last month was 3.3%, which allowed the annual inflation rate to reach 6.4%.