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Ukraine’s largest partner were up almost 19% to $11.3bn dollars. Top export destinations were: EU – 42%; Russia 8%; Turkey – 6%; India – 5%; China and Egypt -- 4% each.
During the first half of this year, Ukraine’s export of computer services increased 29% y/y, to $1.5bn, IT Ukraine Association says, drawing on data from the National Bank of Ukraine. "The total volume of the export revenues of Ukrainian IT industry is much larger," the Association said, noting that IT companies provide foreign clients with consulting services listed under "other services" in the central bank's statistics.
China and Ukraine have set a goal of increasing two-way trade by 30% to $10bn in 2020 , Prime Minister Groysman said after meeting Chinese Ambassador Du Wei Tuesday. In 10 days, dozens of Chinese CEOs are to converge on Kyiv for the Horasis China-Ukraine Meeting, Oct. 14-15. Next month, Ukraine sends a large group to Shanghai for China’s first International Import Expo, to be held Nov. 5-10. UIA has won permission to fly from Boryspil to Shanghai. Now, Ukraine’s flag carrier awaits landing slots.
5.2.2 Gross international reserves
Ukraine’s international reserves continue to slowly shrink as the government waits for the release of the next $1.9bn tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ukraine's forex reserves declined by 11.5% in the first nine months of this year, or $2.17bn.
International reserves dropped by 3.5% in September and as of October 1 amounted to $16.638bn, falling below the $17bn level for the first time since March 2017 and now well below the three months of import cover considered necessary to guarantee the stability of the currency, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said on October 8. Now the available reserves cover 2.8 months of the future imports.
At the same time, the NBU said the specified amount is sufficient to fulfill the obligations of Ukraine and current operations of the government and the NBU.
Ukraine is running short of money as it has a total of some $3bn of obligations to meet through to the end of the year and another $7bn of debt to repay next year. It has been waiting on a resumption of its $17.5bn stand by facility with the IMF that has been de facto suspended because of the government’s foot dragging on reform. An IMF team was in Kyiv last month, but despite the widely anticipated conclusion of a new deal, no agreement was reached. The next tranche of $1.9bn was due in October, but now is unlikely to come before the end of the year. More money from the World Bank and EU is now stuck as its release is tied to a successful conclusion of a new deal with the IMF.
This autumn’s fall in reserves was due to payments for servicing and repaying state and state-guaranteed debt in foreign currency in the amount of $711.2mn. In particular, the costs for servicing eurobonds amounted to $562.3mn, government domestic loan bonds some $103.2mn. The government has been making active use of the local bond market where it offers dollar-denominated debt to local investors, in an effort to shore up its reserves. The state also issued a surprise and expensive short-term Eurobond
35 UKRAINE Country Report November 2018 www.intellinews.com