NBU continuing to cooperate with IMF The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is continuing to work on a memorandum of economic and financial policies as part of its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to Serhiy Kruhlyk, the director of the NBU department for foreign economic liaison.

"The National Bank is continuing to work on the memorandum. We're working out our block of issues," he told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

Kruhlyk said that Ukraine had already received a significant amount of funds from the IMF and was continuing to fulfill the commitments it has undertaken.

In the autumn of 2008, the IMF decided to allocate a Stand-By loan worth around $17 billion. Ukraine has already received nearly $11 billion via three tranches of the loan.

The allocation of the fourth tranche, worth $3.8 billion, was planned for November following the third review of the fund's program with Ukraine. The IMF mission ended its work in Kyiv late in October, but it has not yet issued a positive statement on the completion of the review.

"The mission is now awaiting endorsement of the agreed policy package from the signatories to the program - the President, the Prime Minister, the finance minister, and the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine - including assurances that the wage and pension law approved by Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, this week, which is at odds with the objectives of the authorities' program, will be vetoed," reads the statement.

Following the departure of the mission, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko refused to veto the law increasing social standards and signed it. IMF Mission Chief Ceyla Pazarbasioglu said that the IMF was concerned over this decision by the president and stressed the need for the government to review the draft state budget for 2010, as it contains an excessive budget deficit. She said that the fund had urged Ukraine to stick with recovery policies and to try to forge a consensus to support economic recovery, while avoiding measures that would fuel inflation and unemployment.

Director of the IMF's External Relations Department Caroline Atkinson said that IMF might consider the possibility of providing Ukraine with the fourth tranche of the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) only after the country reaches a broad consensus concerning the implementation of the anti-crisis program.

However, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in an interview with western media that the fund would continue to cooperate with Ukraine only after the presidential elections in the country, which are scheduled for January 2010, are over.