You're reading: The International Monetary Fund to send special mission to Ukraine to promote currency market reform

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will send a special mission to Ukraine to promote the reform of the country's foreign exchange market, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Valeriya Gontareva has said.

“We agreed with the IMF that due to the forex market being so narrow, a fund special mission will come to our country, and together we will outline a plan of how we will build the correct structure of the currency market,” she told reporters on Aug. 29 after a meeting of the central bank’s board with the heads of Ukraine’s 40 largest financial institutions.

Gontareva also noted that a meeting of the IMF Executive Board was scheduled for Aug. 29, during which the allocation of the second tranche under the stand-by program is expected.

“We expect $1.5 billion (from the IMF) on Sept. 3 and $0.5 billion from the World Bank in early September,” she said.

As reported, the IMF Executive Board on April 30 approved a two-year SBA worth SDR 10.976 billion (about $17.01 billion) for Ukraine. Early in May, the IMF transferred the first tranche worth SDR 2.058 billion (about $3.2 billion), with SDR 1.29 billion (about $2 billion) allocated to the Ukrainian government for budget support.

The second-fourth disbursements scheduled for July 25, Sept. 25 and Dec. 15, 2014, respectively, will total SDR 914.7 million each, while the fifth-eighth quarterly disbursements of 2015 will amount to SDR 1.372 billion each. The ninth disbursement of SDR 686 million will be provided in mid-March 2016 if the terms and conditions stipulated in the program are observed.

The IMF mission arrived in Ukraine for the first review of the program on June 24 and worked until July 18. As part of the first review the sides discussed the adjustment of the macroeconomic forecast and the state budget for 2014, including due to the unstable situation in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.

On Aug. 18, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a revised draft letter of intent of the government and the NBU to the IMF and a draft memorandum of economic and financial policies.