Ukraine is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the formula of calculating gas prices for domestic consumers before the complete liberalization of the market, Ukraine’s Minister of Finance Oleksandr Danyliuk has said.
“We need to find a formula that will determine the price of gas for the period until the full liberalization of the market. And now we are working on it. I do not think that it will take us much time,” Danyliuk said during a briefing in Washington after a meeting with the IMF leadership the day before.
According to him, neither the Ukrainian side nor the IMF insists on a certain formula for calculation.
“We have one key principle in the program that prices should be at the level of import parity. This means that the prices at which gas is sold in Ukraine should meet the prices for gas that is imported to Ukraine. Therefore we are looking at the price of gas imported to Ukraine and not any benchmark, such as an exchange, and we accept it as a base. This is an import parity,” the minister explained.
“How to calculate this, what it will lead to is now in work. But the key is to fix this principle so that we do not go in the wrong direction, and here we have full mutual understanding with the IMF,” Danyliuk summed up. (Interfax-Ukraine/Business World Magazine)