In its hryvnia exchange rate fall forecast, Standard & Poor's does not include data on the state of Ukraine's financial account in the first quarter of 2013, which suggests that the hryvnia is not experiencing strong devaluation pressures.

This opinion was expressed to UKRINFORM by executive director of Bleyzer Foundation, Oleg Ustenko.

"Standard & Poor's follows some very conservative scenario. They say it is needed to keep the reserves at a level not less than three months of imports. At the same time, they seem to ignore the fact that in the first quarter of 2013 Ukraine had a surplus in the financial account. This means that there is no strong devaluation pressure on the hryvnia," Ustenko said.

The economist emphasized that the latest NBU statistics confirms that the population began to trust the national currency better, plus the speculative demand for foreign currency disappeared in this country. The National Bank of Ukraine in May 2013, for the first time since April of last year, did not sell foreign currency on the interbank foreign exchange market.

According to Ustenko, the National Bank now can allow the exchange rate to fluctuate within the range of "minus" 0.5% - "plus" 0.5%.

As known, the international rating agency Standard & Poor's admits the possibility of depreciation of the national currency of Ukraine to 9 UAH per 1 USD in 2013 against the background of deterioration in the key economic indicators.

Ukrinform