OREANDA-NEWS. January 29, 2010. The Trade Deficit (TD) amounted to USD 0.9bn in December 2009 (up 35%, m/m), which was mainly due to a slight decline of metallurgy exports (-2%, m/m) and the growth of imports of heavy machinery (up 33%, m/m) and agriculture (up 28%, m/m), while natural gas imports remained near the same. This resulted in the total TD of USD 5.3bn in 2009. At the same time the Financial Account (FA) resulted in surplus in December (USD 0.4bn), mainly due to the excess of external borrowing of banks and corporations over their external debt redemptions (USD 0.2bn and USD 0.5bn, respectively). As a result, the FA Deficit declined by 4%, m/m to USD 11.8bn in December.

Just as Millennium Capital has predicted, the good imports in December were mainly determined by the mineral products amounts and seasonal import factors, while metallurgy export amounts remained volatile. Still, Millennium Capital notes as a positive development the break in the FA trend, which seems be evidence of a slight recovery in external lending (EBRD and IFC loans). Millennium Capital expects that the growth in the imported natural gas price (at least by 30% in 2010) will stimulate the import growth in 2010, which will balance out the expected growth of exports (around 15%, y/y in 2010).