IMF mission urges further reforms in Ukraine

The mission from the International Monetary Fund that left Ukraine this Monday issued a statement yesterday urging Ukraine to take action on further reforms. The text provided some general recommendations, including shifting monetary policy to focus on price stability and taking more decisive steps to meet the government’s budget deficit target of 1.8% of GDP in 2012. The mission reiterated the IMF’s stance that the government has to raise gas tariffs for households so as to fully eliminate subsidies while focusing on protection of the poorest households only.

Vitaliy Vavryshchuk: The IMF mission did not focus on the current Ukraine-IMF standby program and no breakthrough in negotiations on revitalizing the program was expected. The mission’s statement is fully in line with its previous call for a faster pace of reform and is broadly neutral.