The meeting of the Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which will consider granting Ukraine the next tranche under the EFF program, may be held in late January 2017, Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk has said.
“Indeed, after the adoption of the budget we got closer to receiving the next tranche. The Cabinet of Ministers still needs to take certain decisions, which we will do. I hope that we will be ready for the meeting of the IMF board somewhere in the end of January. We are now discussing with the IMF changes into the memorandum. After we finish this process, it will be clear what we will do to comply with the conditions for getting the next tranche”, he said.
The four-year EFF (Extended Fund Facility) program for Ukraine totaling SDR 12.348 billion (about $17 billion at current exchange rates), opened by the IMF in March 2015, originally foresaw quarterly revisions of the program, as well as the issue of four tranches to Kyiv in 2015, and reduction of quarterly tranches in 2016-2018.
However, Ukraine was able to get only the first two tranches and then there was a time gap due to the political crisis and the government change.
Negotiations on renewal of funding were resumed after the appearance of a new Cabinet headed by Volodymyr Groysman in April. The IMF provided the third tranche amounting to $1 billion in the middle of September. According to the revised schedule, it was planned to provide next tranches every quarter, in particular, the fourth tranche of $1.3 billion was to arrive in the middle of November.
However, Ukraine lags behind the schedule to meet efficiency benchmarks outlined in the memorandum on the economic and financial policy revised when the country received the third tranche. (Interfax/Business World Magazine)
