Ukraine will hold talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a 10 billion SDR loan, First Vice Premier Serhiy Arbuzov has announced.
“Concerning the IMF, we plan, as previously, to discuss the sums, documented in the previous memorandum – some 10 billion in SDR’s (around $15 billion),” he told the press in Kyiv on Monday, Jan.14
“Therefore, we will abide by this limit in talks with the mission to arrive here, I’m sure. Nothing has changed to prompt a revision of the sum,” he said.
Asked whether it will be a new program, Arbuzov said: “We’re going to discuss the terms of a new program.”
As reported, a mission of the IMF will arrive in Kyiv for talks with the authorities on January 24.
The current Stand-By Arrangement between Ukraine and the IMF terminated in late 2012.
In late July 2010, the IMF decided to renew its loan partnership with Ukraine through a new Stand-By Arrangement worth SDR 10 billion (over $15 billion). According to the NBU, the country succeeded in getting two tranches worth a total of $3.4 billion.
The new program was frozen at the stage of the second review in the spring of 2011. For a year and a half, Ukraine has been trying to persuade the IMF to drop its objections to the government’s subsidizing natural gas tariffs for households until the completion of its gas talks with Russia.
