You're reading: IMF ready to provide lots of support to countries conducting reforms

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to provide a great deal of support to countries that want to carry out reforms, IMF Resident Representative for Ukraine Max Alier has said.

"We’re ready to invest a lot of resources, but only in those countries that want to introduce reforms," he said in Kyiv at a seminar devoted to the modernization of state finances organized by the International Association of Treasury Services (AIST) with the support of the State Treasury Service of Ukraine.

"Support is given to those countries that want to conduct a sane economic policy. This is a policy that would bring them out of crisis and make them stronger after the crisis than they were before," Alier added.

An IMF Mission worked in Kyiv from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3, 2011, studying the possibility of continuing to provide financing to Ukraine: The mission has taken a pause to carry out additional technical work.

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.

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.