A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has taken a pause to carry out additional technical work, IMF Resident Representative Max Alier has said in a statement.
"An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission visited Ukraine from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3. Progress has been made on policies to complete the second review under the Stand-by Arrangement. We have decided to take a pause to enable some additional technical work to be carried out," reads the statement.
Alier said that discussions on economic policies were expected to be resumed in the near future.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko and Finance Minister Fedir Yaroshenko left for Washington on Nov. 2 to hold talks with the IMF.
An IMF mission arrived in Kyiv on October 25 and planned to complete its work on Nov. 4.
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 under the new program. The IMF decided in December to allocate a second tranche worth SDR 1 billion.
The program foresaw future quarterly allocation of tranches, each worth SDR 1 billion, with the exception of the last tranche, which was to 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 had expected Ukraine to approve pension reform and settle the problem of low prices of natural gas for households.
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.
Ukraine’s government 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.
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