Ukrainians buy currency en masse: expert names the reason for the frenzy
7 November 20:25
Ukrainians in October 2024 set a record excess of currency purchases since 2012, exceeding the amount of sales by 1.39 billion dollars. Cash currency purchases totaled 2.585 billion dollars, 319 million more than in September. Cash currency sales rose by $42.2 million to $1.312 billion.
In the corporate market, the demand for foreign exchange also increased to $6.77 billion, but the sale of foreign exchange rose even more to $5.38 billion. Economist Oleh Hetman explained why this situation has developed in an exclusive commentary Komersant ukrainskyi.
“I have no idea why Ukrainians are buying up currency. The only thing is that it coincided in time with the elections in America. Perhaps Ukrainians think that the dollar will strengthen because of Trump’s election. But this is very such a subtle relationship,” the expert said.
According to him, it can be assumed that Ukrainians are so financially sophisticated that they observe all the nuances of global macroeconomics and geopolitics. Then the assumption that the demand for currency is related to the presidential race in the United States will be correct. They followed the election, they saw that Trump won and now the dollar will strengthen against other currencies, so they favored the dollar.
The economic expert also suggested that Ukrainians decided to capitalize on the fact that the dollar strengthened against other currencies – the euro, yen and pound sterling.
“Another assumption is that perhaps the Ukrainians also think that because of Trump’s arrival there will be less help from America, and accordingly there will be less foreign exchange reserves and the hryvnia will weaken a little. But this assumption will not correspond to reality, because except for America, all others help us in full and even increase their assistance”, – said Oleg Hetman.
What will the dollar be by the end of the year and at the beginning of 2025?
Oleg Getman says that nothing will change in relation to the hryvnia.
“As planned for the end of next year 45, so, perhaps, we will not even reach this figure, and it will be 44-44.5 or 43.5. That’s for the end of next year. Therefore, there have been no changes here,” the expert explained.
The situation is also stable in terms of foreign exchange reserves and international aid. Even if the U.S. will help financially a little less than this year, other countries still provide huge amounts of currency in the form of grants, macrofin, cheap loans. Plus they are adding $50 billion, which we don’t need to pay back, on account of Russian seized assets.
“Therefore, we will have enough currency to hold the hryvnia for as many years as we want,” the economist summarized.
