Businesses’ old external loan debts hit about $21B – NBU Governor

The relevant statement was made by National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Governor Andriy Pyshnyy in his blog for Ukrinform.

“The old external loan debts of enterprises are colossal. As of April 1, 2025, they reached about USD 14 billion in the principal amount and over USD 7 billion in interest. Since the full-scale invasion started, the increase has been USD 3 billion each. Hence, these are ‘live’ loans,” Pyshnyy noted.

In his words, current restrictions do not allow businesses to repay old loans, but only to pay interest under certain conditions. At the same time, the NBU cannot rapidly ease this restriction due to the risk of a sharp increase in the demand for currency.

The situation is similar with payments for ‘old’ imports, which are now prohibited. The actual needs of businesses in such transactions amounted to USD 3.2 billion last year.

To address this problem, last week the NBU introduced a mechanism for stimulating foreign exchange liberalization, which allows businesses to conduct certain transactions above established limits and restrictions within the ‘investment limit’.

“The NBU allowed businesses to conduct certain transactions above the established limits and restrictions. There is one very important condition – within the investment limit. This limit is equal to the amount of foreign investments in foreign currency that enterprises will attract to their authorized capital from abroad from May 12, 2025,” Pyshnyy explained.

As emphasized by the NBU Governor, this will allow enterprises to conduct such critically important transactions as payment for the imports of goods received before February 23, 2021 and settlements on external loans received before June 20, 2023, but only within the limits of the funds that such businesses have attracted to Ukraine’s economy.