In December 2024, the National Bank of Ukraine set a historical record for the sale of its gold and currency reserves. According to the regulator's new report, the volume of foreign currency sold on the interbank market amounted to $5.3 billion.
This is a maximum not only during the great war - the previous peak was recorded in June 2022 in the amount of $3.99 billion. But it is also the largest indicator in the entire history of public observations of the NBU, which the National Bank has been updating every month since the beginning of 2012. Before the full-scale invasion, the regulator recorded its peak foreign exchange sales during the financial crisis in October 2014 - $3.2 billion/month. Now it is 1.7 times more.
According to the results of November-2024, the NBU's gold and currency reserves amounted to $39.9 billion, and officials promised to increase them significantly by the end of the year thanks to international aid, which consists not only of grants, but also loans. However, no one imagined that the national bankers would increase the waste of foreign exchange reserves at such a speed. Even the management of the NBU itself made reassuring statements.
We will remind that during the press conference on December 12, 2024, the foreign currency deputy head of the National Bank Yuriy Geletiy assured that the situation on the foreign exchange market is under control, and large foreign currency sales from the regulator's currency reserve are not expected. He said that the NBU plans to invest $3.5-4 billion in December.
This forecast was not realized, and even so, the official hryvnia/dollar exchange rate was devalued from UAH 41.6/$ to UAH 42.04/$ in December.
