Deficit of Ukraine's current account in Jan-Sept down by 3.4 times - NBU

The deficit of Ukraine's current account of the balance of payments in January-September 2014 amounted to $3.346 billion, which is 3.4 times lower than last year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).

"In September, the deficit of the current account widened to $612 million compared to $91 million in August. The slowdown in the decline of domestic demand and the strengthening of the real effective exchange rate entailed the growth of goods imports by 13% compared to August. At the same time, the rise in exports was restrained by the military conflict in the east of the country and trade restrictions with Russia," reads the report.

According to the National Bank, for the second consecutive month agricultural products have been the largest export group and the only one, in which a growth was recorded (8.3% from the same period last year).

"This was primarily due to the increase in the supply of new harvest grain (by 19.4%), oil and fat (58.8%) mainly to the markets of the EU, India and Egypt, as well as the export of meat products (46.4%) to the EU and Iraq," the NBU said.

According to the report, the deficit of the account of operations with capital and financial transactions in the first nine months of this year reached $1.599 billion, while for the same period last year its surplus of $13.018 billion was fixed.