KYIV, April 13 – The economic outcome of March for Ukraine in terms of the impact of the war are still distorted due to pre-war inertia, fiscal risks will grow, and in such conditions it is important to take care of the international reserves accumulated in recent years, First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Kateryna Rozhkova has said.

"According to various estimates, we have already lost 35% to 50% of our GDP today. We understand that fiscal risks are very serious as never before. There is a goal to prevent destabilization on the financial and macroeconomic front. Today, we need to treat our gold and foreign exchange reserves as sparingly as possible," she said at Cocktail with Deloitte devoted to Ukraine's financial security during the war and after the victory.

Rozhkova recalled that the current $28 billion in international reserves is a good reserve accumulated after the Revolution of Dignity, when a "practically empty account" was received in February.

"Today, the statistics are slightly distorted. March was still lived by the inertia of peacetime: exports were still taking place all February, the economy lived in a peaceful scheme almost until the end of February. It is already April, and it is already clear that exports have been reduced very much. It is physically impossible even to deliver last year's harvest – the ports are blocked," the first deputy governor of the National Bank said.

Serhiy Budkin, an investment banker and managing partner at FinPoint Investment Advisers, who participated in the discussion, the main problem that the banking system will face and which does not depend on it is probably the change in the structure of the balance of payments during the war and after it. Now the export of the mining and metallurgical products will be largely impossible due to the destructions in Mariupol. The problem of exporting other raw materials, according to Budkin, does not yet have a systemic solution in the conditions of blocked ports. (om/ez)