The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has raised its forecast for the income from foreign direct investment in the current year from $2.4 billion to $3.3 billion, NBU Governor Valeria Gontareva said at a press conference.
”The main driver of economic growth will be a significant increase in investment activity, which started this year. Reduced risk of escalation of the military conflict stimulates increasingly the economic agents to invest and take long-term investment decisions,” she said.
At the same time, Gontareva has noted that this will stimulate growth of investment imports, therefore net exports may have a negative contribution to GDP. But, she said, the resumption of investment demand will have a positive impact on the export capacity in the future.
”The increase in investment activity led us to increase the forecast of the current account deficit, which will amount to $2.5 billion a year, from $1.8 billion. We also increased the forecast for the current account deficit for the next year: it was $2.1 billion, and now it is $2.9 billion,” she said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, foreign direct investment in Ukraine`s economy (non-resident shareholders` equity) as of July 1, 2016, amounted to $44.791 billion, marking a 5.4% rise, or $2.282 billion, compared with the beginning of the year ($42.509 billion).
On August 29, the president of Ukraine announced the establishment of the National Investment Council, which would be chaired by Lozhkin.
Lozhkin believes Ukraine can attract up to $3-5 billion in investment in 2017 should it demonstrate a progress in implementing the reforms.
In aid of the National Investment Council, on October 19, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine set up Investment Support Office of Ukraine designed to help investors in all aspects of the country, and appointed Danylo Bilak its Director.
