The average nominal salary paid to staff workers rose by 1.1% m-o-m in May, to UAH 10,542/month ($393/month),  while its y-o-y growth accelerated to +3.0% from +1.6% in April. In real terms, the average salary inched up 0.8% m-o-m and 1.4% y-o-y (vs. -0.4% in April).

The NBU Council, the central bank’s supervisory body, did not extend the term of office of Deputy NBU Governor Oleg Churiy, who was responsible for market operations.

Metinvest announced it was finalizing talks with the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank to attract a EUR 62m 7-year loan, which had already been approved by the bank’s Board of Directors. The company plans to use the proceeds to finance its CAPEX and replenish working capital.

In the two weeks since our last strategy report, the local UX index lost 8.7% while the broader KP-Dragon index fell by 3.5%.

Markets are likely to focus on news flow around the appointment of a new NBU governor and list of potential candidates for the position.

The Verkhovna Rada on Friday supported President Volodymyr Zelensky’s motion to dismiss NBU Governor Yakiv Smoliy, following Smoliy’s earlier decision to resign over political pressure on the central bank. A total of 286 lawmakers voted for the dismissal, or 60 above the required minimum of 226. The 248-strong presidential party Servant of the People provided 211 votes, with 35 votes from lawmakers from single-seat constituencies as well as 22 MPs from pro-Russian Opposition Bloc and 13 from ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko’s party amply making up for the shortage.

Construction declined by 2.6% y-o-y in May following a 16% slump in April, bringing the 5M20 tally to -7.1% y-o-y, down from a 30% growth in 5M19.

Ukraine’s harvest of early grain crops stood at 1.1 Mt as of Jul. 2, down from 6.1 Mt as of the same date a year ago. The harvested area was reported at 419,400 ha, down 78% y-o-y and representing 3% of total grain plantings. Winter wheat was gathered from 0.1 Mha or 2% of total plantings, for a current harvest of 0.2 Mt, and barley from 0.3 Mha (13% of total area), for 0.9 Mt.

The State Customs Service reported total merchandise exports fell by 5.3% y-o-y to $3.4bn in June, recovering from a 24% y-o-y plunge in May, while imports dropped by 8.4% y-o-y to $4.0bn after sliding by 30% in May. The provisional merchandise trade gap thus stood at $0.6bn in June following a small $36m surplus in May.

Ukraine’s current account (C/A) ran a $1.4bn surplus in May, slightly below a revised +$1.9bn in April, bringing the 5M20 surplus to $5.6bn (vs. $1.1bn deficit in 5M19). The financial and capital account (F/A) deficit, including IMF funds, widened to $1.7bn in May from $1.2bn in April, bringing the 5M20 deficit to $5.4bn (vs. -$0.2bn in 5M19).

The NBU changed its balance of payments methodology, shifting reinvested earnings of non-financial enterprises to FDI from the current account (C/A), in line with IMF guidelines for balance of payments data compilation. The FDI and C/A data were revised retroactively to 2015.

Crude steel production in Ukraine increased by 10% m-o-m and 8.6% y-o-y to 1.8 Mt in June, bringing 1H20 output to 10.1 Mt (-7.6% y-o-y). Production of hot metal rose 9% m-o-m and 20% y-o-y to 1.8 Mt, with 1H20 output down 2.6% y-o-y to 10.0 Mt. Production of finished steel was up 9.3% m-o-m and 6.2% y-o-y at 1.6 Mt, with the 1H20 tally down 4.2% y-o-y to 9.0 Mt.

Ukraine exported a record 56.4 Mt of grain in the 2019/20 marketing year (MY; July 2019-June 2020), up 14% y-o-y and including 30.3 Mt of corn (+2%), 20.5 Mt of wheat (+32%) and 5.0 Mt of barley (+40%).

The government’s UAH balances in the unified treasury account (central and local budgets combined) surged to UAH 76bn as of end-June, or the equivalent of $2.8bn, up from UAH 32bn in May  and UAH 13bn a year ago.