Floating hryvnia exchange rate should positively influence growth of Ukrainian economy

The floating hryvnia exchange rate should have a positive impact on the growth of the Ukrainian economy, President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center Oleksandr Okhrymenko has said.

"The floating rate stimulates inflation, inflation will stimulate, oddly enough, the growth of GDP - there is such a consistent pattern in Ukraine. If there is inflation, businesses feel slightly better, they think how to invest hryvnias. But, as I understand, the results of the first quarter will be not the nicest, because it is difficult to do business when there is political instability in the country," he said.

"As for the future, as I understand, the exchange rate will continue to grow and it is difficult to say to what level it will rise. From my point of view, the effect characteristic for Ukraine before any political events will occur: businesses have the tradition to hide currency before elections," added the expert.

At the same time, he said that when the political situation in the country stabilizes, as shown by the previous experience, the currency would return.

Adviser to the NBU head Valeriy Lytvytsky, in turn, noted that an extremely extensive flow of currency is also not a good thing.

"The main thing for us is not to create pressure on the reduction on the exchange rate, but also prevent fluctuations upwards from going off the scale. We support predictable rate fluctuations, which would be based on the economic foundation. If we manage to keep the agreement on gas prices, the current account might even be positive. This is hypothetically, this is not the official position of the NBU," the banker said.