You're reading: Azarov: IMF mission to visit Ukraine on October 24

A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will make a visit to Ukraine soon, Ukrainian Premier Mykola Azarov has said during a briefing in Kyiv region on Tuesday.

"The IMF mission will arrive on October 24," he said.

Last week, Ukrainian Vice Premier and Social Policy Minister Sergiy Tigipko said the mission would arrive to continue talks on the resumption of funding under the stand-by arrangement.

The vice prime minister noted that $13 billion are reserved for Ukraine under the stand by cooperation program with the IMF.

"This is very good, as so many [countries] need money," he added.

The IMF decided to renew its loan partnership with Ukraine in the summer of 2010 through a new stand-by program.

In late July 2010, Kyiv received the first tranche of SDR 1.25 billion. The IMF decided in December to allocate a second tranche worth SDR 1 billion.

The program foresaw the future quarterly allocation of tranches, each worth SDR 1 billion, with the exception of the last tranche, which will be worth SDR 750 million.

However, an IMF mission that worked in Kyiv in March 2011 could not recommend to the IMF Executive Board that it approve another tranche for Ukraine.

The IMF expected Ukraine to approve pension reform and settle the problem of low prices of natural gas for households – measures required for it to get the third tranche under the SBA.

The next visit of the International Monetary Fund’s mission to Ukraine was first scheduled for Aug. 29 through Sept. 9, but was then postponed until late October 2011.

Tigipko said that due to the delay in financing, two tranches of the stand-by loan could be combined, which would help replenish the foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine with about $3 billion.