In September, the deficit of current balance of payments grew to USD 1.7 billion as against the decline in the export trend and significant scheduled public debt payments.
The current account deficit widened to USD 3.9 billion in January–September as compared to USD 1.5 billion in the same period a year ago.
In September, the volume of commodity exports decreased by 3.6% to USD 3.3 billion.
Export trends deteriorated across all commodity groups, primarily due to lower yields of early grain crops, smaller carryover stocks of last year’s yields of some technical crops, repairs at iron and steel works, transportation issues, and less favorable external pricing environment. As a result, value of grain exports dropped by 4.6% yoy, oil seeds by 16.9%, and oil and fats by 7%, while the rise in iron ore exports slowed to 0.8% yoy and metals exports to 8.3% yoy.
In total, exports of goods grew by 9.9% to USD 31.5 billion over January–September.
In September, imports of goods amounted to USD 5.1 billion with their annual growth remaining high (17.3%), fueled by the sustainable growth in domestic demand and high energy prices.
Import volumes of oil products increased markedly in September, which led to a substantial acceleration of the growth in value terms (up to 47% yoy) against the highest in four years global oil prices. Imports of machinery continued to increase (by 22.6% yoy) and high consumer demand bolstered growth in imports of industrial goods (by 36.3% yoy).
In total, imports of goods grew by 15.6% to USD 40.6 billion over January–September compared with the same period of last year.
In September, net financial account inflows of capital totaled USD 1.1 billion (versus USD 1.3 billion in September 2017) and were generated by the private sector operations, mostly trade credits.
In addition, reduction in FX cash outside banks recommenced in September (down by USD 142 million), reflecting the decline in household demand for FX cash.
Net FDI inflows amounted to USD 102 million, 93% of which were directed to the real sector in the form of equity. For the period from January to September 2018, net FDI inflows were estimated at USD 1.5 billion (of which 28% were debt-to-equity operations).
Overall, the financial account recorded USD 3.4 billion in net inflows over the period from January to September 2018, reaching the levels of the same period of 2017.
In September, the balance of payments posted a deficit of USD 582 million. This made international reserves decrease to USD 16.6 billion as of the end of September, sufficient to cover 2.8 months of future imports.
The updated data for September 2018 are available under the External Sector Statistics section.
For greater details on balance of payments, see the Macroeconomic and Monetary Review (October 2018), which will be published on 31 October 2018.