Ukraine’s currency lost more than a third of its value on foreign exchange markets at one point on Thursday, piling fresh pressure on policymakers to secure an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Ukraine’s central bank raised interest rates by 5 percentage points in the morning, but failed to stem the decline in the hryvnia, which slid to 24.5 against the dollar, its weakest level since 2009, in the depths of the global financial crisis.
Valery Gontareva, head of the National Bank of Ukraine, said he would stop attempting to prop up the currency, telling reporters in Kiev to “get used to market volatility”.
The Ukrainian government has warned that it will need to negotiate a debt restructuring deal with its bondholders, as it seeks to secure the next tranche of a $17bn loan from the Washington-based IMF.
Ukraine’s economy has historically been reliant on cheap imports of gas from Russia, and a willing market for its exports there. But since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which was met with economic sanctions from Europe and the US, the economic ties between the two countries have broken down.
Liza Ermolenko, of Capital Economics, said: “Exports have been crashing, because Russia is such a big market. Ukraine is in a very difficult situation, and it’s going to be in a difficult situation for some time.”
A sharp decline in the currency since the start of the year has triggered inflation, eroding the value of wages and making it hard for Ukraine to pay for imports. Foreign currency reserves have also plunged.
The billionaire financier George Soros has repeatedly urged international donors to funel more funds to the embattled government in Kiev, to protect the country’s economy from collapse. Kiev has already received some financial support from the US and the EU.
