The real decline in Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 was 7.5% amid the double devaluation of the national currency due to the accumulation of previous years' macroeconomic imbalances, the annexation of Crimea and the hostilities in Donbas, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Valeriya Gontareva said.
“We’ve inherited a country with an accumulation of huge macroeconomic
imbalances… Then there was the annexation of Crimea, followed by a real,
bloody war in Donbas,” she said at a press conference on the results of the year
in Kyiv on Dec. 30.
The main task of the National Bank is to ensure the stability of the national
currency evaluated by price stability “rather than by the forex rate of the U.S.
dollar against the hryvnia,” she said.
The NBU governor also gave an update on inflation in Ukraine in January
through November, stating it stood at 21.2%.
