Ukraine finance minister expects next IMF wire by end of February

Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko told the French television on Jan. 27 that she expects the IMF will agree with Ukrainian requests to launch a new loan arrangement and provide the next tranche by the end of February, as reported by the UNIAN news agency on Jan. 27.

“We plan to reach an agreement on the new cooperation program with the IMF – taking into account the mechanism of expanded financing under the Extended Fund Facility – in the upcoming days in order to confirm the program and to start financing it already by the end of February,” Jaresko said.

At the same time, she did not give any hint on the potential size of the support. “The sum of funding is not an issue at the moment,” she said. “It’s understood that we need significant financial support. However, it is not the sum of funding that is important but returning confidence to the market, increasing our gross international reserves and repaying our liabilities.”

Alexander Paraschiy: The finance minister’s comments are in line with our understanding of the situation. The IMF is interested in extending cooperation and other donors will subsequently offer significant funds based on its decision. We anticipate the IMF mission will finalize its list of compulsory measures for the government in the next few days, which should be implemented already in the first half of February to ensure a positive decision by the IMF executive board by the end of February. We believe most of these measures will involve severe spending cuts to the overly optimistic 2015 spending plan hastily approved in late December.