Former Minister Predicts Post-Election Hryvnia Devaluation

The hryvnia is sure to drop after the elections and toward the end of the year its rate may drop to 5.00 or even 5.50 to the US dollar, says Viktor Suslov, People's Deputy and former Minister of the Economy. In an interview with UNIAN, he declared that Ukraine is in for “an economic period of unprecedented difficulty” after the presidential campaign, because “we'll have to pay for the policy aimed at victory in the campaign.”

Mr. Suslov further pointed out that the commercial banks are currently “pressed hard by the National Bank which, using reserve standards and other instruments, is holding back their credit activities, thus reducing the opportunity to make loans to the production sphere.” Under the circumstances, he believes that the commercial banks “are being made to chip in on social payments in some form or another and to increase loans to the government.”

After the election, Mr. Suslov thinks that NBU will have to make broader use of “instruments such as stabilization loans” to ward off further economic upheavals; most likely it will have to resort to an additional emission affecting the national currency's stability.