On 30 October 2025, the NBU held an online meeting with the leadership of Ukrainian businesses that participate in the central bank’s business outlook surveys. Through such regular meetings, the business community receives answers to pressing questions and professional explanations of the NBU’s decisions and plans, and provides suggestions and feedback.
"As always, we are thankful to businesses for participating in NBU surveys. We use this very valuable source of information when discussing decisions on monetary policy and other areas of NBU activities," NBU First Deputy Governor Sergiy Nikolaychuk said in a speech while opening the meeting.
The event gathered 129 representatives of 120 companies from almost every sector of the economy and from the vast majority of Ukraine’s regions. The meeting conventionally covered a wide range of issues, including an overview of the economy’s current state, the NBU’s revised macro forecast, monetary and exchange rate policy, international cooperation, FX liberalization progress, and war risk insurance.
Overview of the economic situation and the macroeconomic forecast
Inflation in Ukraine has settled on a sustainable-decline trajectory after a short-lived surge. The growth in consumer prices decelerated to 11.9% yoy in September. However, underlying price pressures remain persistent, particularly due to the still high costs of energy and labor to businesses. The NBU projects inflation will continue to decline: to 9.2% in 2025, to 6.6% in 2026, and to the 5% target at end-2027. This will be facilitated, among other things, by monetary policy measures to support interest in hryvnia assets and the sustainability of the FX market.
The economy continues to grow, although its growth remains limited due to the fallout from the war. This includes an energy deficit caused by the destruction of infrastructure and natural gas production facilities and by labor shortages. In view of the above, the NBU has revised its economic growth forecast for 2025 downward, to 1.9%. Growth is expected to moderately pick up in the coming years, with Ukraine’s GDP gaining 2% in 2026 and 2.8% in 2027.
Comprehensive coverage of the macroeconomic forecast is available in the October 2025 Inflation Report.
Monetary policy
The NBU left its key policy rate unchanged at 15.5%. This decision took into account inflationary risks that have risen with the escalation of russian aerial strikes against Ukraine’s energy and gas production facilities, the increase in state budget needs, and higher inflation expectations. Monetary conditions continue to ensure the attractiveness of hryvnia savings without impeding economic recovery, including lending development.
The NBU’s forecast says cuts to the key policy rate may kick off in Q1 2026. The NBU will maintain relatively tight monetary conditions to safeguard the sustainability of the FX market and ensure a steady decline in inflation to its 5% target. Meanwhile, the central bank is ready to respond flexibly to shifts in the balance of risks to price dynamics and inflation expectations. If these risks intensify and/or materialize, the NBU will be ready to postpone the lowering of the key policy rate. Alternatively, a weakening of pro-inflationary risks will signal that a move toward an interest rate easing cycle is warranted.
International cooperation
Support from international partners is vital for Ukraine amid the need to maintain macrofinancial stability as the full-scale war grinds on.
Having successfully completed a record eight reviews of the current EFF program, Ukraine is cooperating effectively with the IMF. At the same time, a shift in assumptions about the duration and intensity of military operations makes it necessary to revise the format of this cooperation. Ukraine’s recent request for a new program is intended to (1) increase the amount of financial resources, (2) extend the program’s duration, and (3) provide a platform to coordinate and consolidate international partners’ efforts.
Core priorities of the new program for Ukraine remain unchanged: ensuring macrofinancial stability, implementing structural reforms, and bringing legislation into line with European standards, all of which will pave the way for Ukraine to become an EU member.
Also in focus:
- Developing the financial market infrastructure is an important prerequisite for facilitating economic recovery and stimulating domestic investment and foreign capital inflows into the country.
- Unshadowing the Ukrainian economy is a guarantee of higher tax revenues and productivity.
Exchange rate policy
The NBU aligns its exchange rate policy with the pursuit of its mandate, which consists in bringing inflation to its 5% target over the policy horizon. Ensuring the FX market’s sustainability is a necessary condition for keeping inflationary and exchange rate expectations under control. Under the current regime of managed exchange rate flexibility, the hryvnia’s exchange rate against the U.S. dollar is shaped by the market’s FX-demand-to-supply ratio. Its changes are what drive two-way fluctuations in the exchange rate. The NBU smooths out the exchange rate’s excessive movements and covers the private sector’s structural deficit of foreign exchange. The current and projected levels of international reserves are sufficient to ensure the FX market’s sustainability.
The NBU is moving forward down the path outlined in its FX Liberalization Roadmap, opening up increasingly more opportunities for businesses to make urgent transactions without putting significant pressure on international reserves. Since May 2024, over 400 companies have used the opportunity to pay interest on "old" external loans, while more than 870 companies have been able to repatriate "new" dividends. Of these, 157 companies have already taken advantage of the chance to repatriate dividends based on 2023 performance.
The focus is on expanding the modality of the stimulating liberalization, a mechanism that creates more favorable FX regulation conditions for new capital flowing into Ukraine.
War risk insurance
The need to insure against war risks in Ukraine arises from foreign and domestic investors’ desire to have basic guarantees that their capital would be safe amid the full-scale war, which has been causing multi-billion-dollar losses. The insurance market has partially adjusted to businesses’ and households’ preferences for coverage of war risks and has begun to provide limited coverage for certain insurance categories and assets, such as movable property (primarily vehicles) and real estate. However, war risk coverage options available in Ukraine are limited, and the number of providers of these services is too small to matter. This is due to the high probability of risks materializing, especially in territories hardest hit by hostilities, reinsurance difficulties in the international market, and other factors.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture is currently facilitating the development of a short-term war-risk coverage solution that can be implemented while active hostilities are ongoing. The solution proposes two flows of government aid that will be allocated starting next year and administered by the Export Credit Agency.
A long-term solution is also being developed to build a system of war risk insurance that will be less dependent on state budget resources. Such a permanent solution can be implemented after the end of active hostilities.
During the meeting, NBU representatives – experts from the Statistics and Reporting Department, Monetary Policy and Economic Analysis Department, Financial Stability Department, Open Market Operations Department, Department of Methodology for Nonbank Financial Institutions, and Financial Monitoring Department – provided detailed answers to numerous questions from representatives of the business community.
As usual, the NBU invites business representatives to participate in online surveys in the Monthly Business Outlook Surveys mobile app. The app can be downloaded from Google Play and the App Store. The NBU will continue to hold regular meetings with the managers of companies that participate in business outlook surveys.