Ukraine`s state and state-guaranteed debt, estimated at US$67 billion in late July, or 77% of the country`s GDP, is projected to increase to US$ 68 billion, or 80% of GDP, by the end of 2016, but will decline to 75% of GDP in 2017, chief economist at Dragon Capital Olena Belan has told UNIAN.
”We expect a slight acceleration in growth of the national debt in the second half due to receiving bailout funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S.,” Belan said in her commentary.
”We also expect that the government will ramp up domestic hryvnia-denominated borrowings to finance the budget deficit, but a small devaluation of the hryvnia to 27 UAH per dollar by the end of the year will likely mitigate completely the debt growth in the national currency,” she added.
According to Belan`s estimates, the national debt in July fell by 0.2%, as compared to June, against a backdrop of the government`s repayments of several issues of hryvnia-denominated domestic government bonds, most of which are held by the National Bank of Ukraine, while an increasing budget deficit on a cash basis was financed mainly by means of balances accumulated in the previous months.
As reported by UNIAN earlier, Ukraine`s state and state-guaranteed debt, at the end of July 2016, totalled US$ 66.995 billion, down by 0.2%, or US$ 125.8 million, as compared to the beginning of the month.
In the hryvnia equivalent, the total amount of state and state-guaranteed debt at the end of July 2016 amounted to UAH 1.661 trillion, which is down by 0.4%, or UAH 6.892 billion, over the beginning of the month.
Since the beginning of the year, from January through July, the amount of state and state-guaranteed debt in dollar terms has increased by 2.3%, or US$ 1.490 billion, and in the hryvnia equivalent, it has grown by 5.7%, or UAH 89.181 billion.
