You're reading: National Bank sees exchange rate of Hr 12.95/$1 for 2015 national budget

It is appropriate to calculate the draft national budget for 2015 on the basis of the exchange rate of Hr 12.95/$1, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Valeriya Gontareva has said on the 1+1 TV channel.

“With the present state of the market, without Naftogaz Ukrainy entering it, it [the exchange rate] should be around Hr 12.50-13.00… I would not include [in the draft national budget] the exchange rate other than Hr 12.95,” she said.

She also said that new administrative restrictions on the foreign currency market could be introduced if the hryvnia devaluation continues.

“We’re trying to find a new balanced exchange rate. If we understand that the strategy we’ve found does not bring us there, we’ll have to toughen certain administrative regulations,” she said.

She said that the size of currency reserves which could be used to support the national currency exchange rate is very limited.

“Our country will not live in the fixed exchange rate anymore… This brings our country to neither the economic growth nor stability of the financial system,” Gontareva said.

Commenting on measures which should be taken she said that among them is the toughening of the amount of cash transactions and the removal of legal grounds for early withdrawal of deposits with fixed period.

“What we’ll do first, and there is such a draft law in the parliament, this is that our cash payments do not exceed, for example, 1,000 euros… The second issue we’re preparing now for the new parliament is that our deposits with fixed period are really deposits with fixed period,” she said.