National Bank assessed coronavirus impact on Ukraine's economy

Ukraine has emerged virtually unscathed from the coronavirus’s global spread in February and early March, with Ukrainian exports continuing to rise, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) states.

"Further increases in physical volumes of Ukraine’s exports have more than offset certain declines in prices for some of the goods the country exports. Import prices are declining even faster than export prices, especially energy prices, reducing the value of imports. Meanwhile, foreign investors have not significantly cut back on purchases of Ukrainian hryvnia government debt securities in recent weeks," the report reads.

The NBU is maintaining an active presence in the interbank FX market in order to smooth out the excessive hryvnia exchange rate volatility, which has intensified over the past week as market sentiment has worsened amid heightened uncertainty over whether the coronavirus will continue to spread around the world and to rattle the global financial and commodity markets, the statement says.

Previously reported that since the start of 2019/20 (July 2019 – June 2020), Ukraine has supplied 43.32 mln t of staple grains to foreign markets. As of Mar. 11, agricultural commodities shipment increased by 8.34 mln t from the prior year's comparative period.