This was reported on Telegram by Daniil Getmantsev, the head of the parliamentary committee on financial issues.
He noted that in the first 11 months of 2024, foreign direct investments decreased by 14% year-on-year.
“According to the National Bank, for the first 11 months of 2024, the balance of payments has shown a deficit of $3.1 billion (compared to a surplus of +$8.4 billion during the same period last year). Taking into account the record inflows of external official financing from partners in December (+$9.2 billion) and equally record interventions by the NBU to support the exchange rate (-$5.3 billion), as well as trends in foreign trade, the balance of payments at the end of the year will be close to zero. This can be considered a good result given the full-scale war and is one of the indicators of macro-financial stability,” noted the MP.
At the same time, Getmantsev emphasizes several aspects that need to be constantly monitored:
- High and persistent deficit in the current account (CA).
In the first 11 months of last year, it expanded to $13.9 billion (compared to $8.7 billion for the first 11 months of 2023). By the end of the year, the CA deficit will exceed 8% of GDP (5.3% in 2023). According to the IMF, a CA deficit above 5% of GDP in the long term is unsustainable and poses risks to macro-financial stability.
- In 2024, we are witnessing a reduction in foreign direct investments (FDI).
For the first 11 months of 2024, the inflow of FDI into Ukraine amounted to $3.98 billion, with a net inflow of FDI (after deducting FDI outflows from Ukraine) of $3.64 billion. This represents a 14% decrease (19% in the case of net FDI) compared to the same period last year. Since a significant portion of FDI (75% in 2023, 64% in the first 11 months of 2024) consists of reinvested earnings, the reduction is partially due to relaxations on the repatriation of "new" dividends (accrued since January 1, 2024) introduced by the NBU in May of this year.