By Natalya Zinets
KIEV, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The Ukrainian hryvnia currency slipped close to its all-year low on Thursday to around 8.72-8.82 against the dollar as the central bank stayed away from the interbank market, dealers said.
The hryvnia has been losing ground in the past two months as banks and the state have more foreign currency debts repayments than they had before in the year and as Ukraine starts buying more gas for the winter months.
"If the central bank does not intervene on the market, then the dollar will continue to grow tomorrow," one dealer said.
The central bank made no indication it would intervene on Thursday. Since the start of the year it has, with rare exceptions, intervened on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and carried out foreign currency auctions on Wednesdays and Fridays.
The central bank has made no comment about the falling hryvnia.
Acting Finance Minister Ihor Umansky blamed the currency's weakness on panic and speculation on the market.
"We have no problems with trade and payment balances, they are being equalised. We have no macroeconomic or macrofiscal problems in that respect. The monetary base and payment balance gives no reason to talk of a depreciation," he told journalists.
"What is going on is down to expectations, to panic and speculation. These are not market factors and they must be eliminated by the central bank.
But traders disagreed.
"There is no panic, the dollar is just systematically rising," said one.
"There are economic reasons -- the country is import-orientated and the dollar is always needed to pay for suppliers. The central bank has been selling less and more rarely in recent times," the dealer said.
QUEUES FOR CASH
The hryvnia, for years kept in a tight corridor of about 5/$ by the central bank flush with reserves, began falling sharply a year ago when the global financial crisis started to take effect in the ex-Soviet state. As Ukraine's vital steel and chemical exports plunged, so did dollar earnings thus dragging the hryvnia down with them. The currency hit a historic low of 9.5/10/$ in December last year before being systematically support by the central bank.
The International Monetary Fund also came to the rescue, pumping over $10 billion of a $16.4 billion standby loan into the country, most of that to central bank reserves.
The last tranche of $3.3 billion, disbursed in August, however went straight to the budget deficit, leaving the bank with far less dollars to play with in the coming weeks.
State energy firm Naftogaz also must pay $667 million for its Russian gas bill. Its monthly dollar purchases impacts the currency market, even if it manages to get the foreign currency directly from the central bank, as Umansky said.
"The fact that Naftogaz is not on the market and buys dollars direct from the central bank only means that we are not yet at 10/$," said one dealer. "If Naftogaz had gone straight to the market we would be in an even worse situation."
Since the beginning of last week, the central bank has tried to calm the cash market down, by limiting some of its interventions to banks needing to replenish the foreign currency exchange booth.
But the result was huge queues in recent days outside those banks that bought dollars from the central bank and sold them at about 8.1/$ and those that failed and were selling the dollar at daily increasing rates to about 8.8/$ on Thursday. (Writing by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Andy Bruce)