IMF hopes to decide on fourth Ukraine tranche in a week

The IMF hopes to finalize the third review of its USD 17.5 external funds facility (EFF) program with Ukraine in the next week, enabling the release of the fourth loan tranche, the Voice of America news site reported on Feb. 27, citing IMF press service comments. The fund and Ukraine “reached significant progress in making the decisions that were preconditions for the third review,” the IMF said. Currently, discussions are ongoing to finalize the remaining questions. “We hope to propose to our executive board to complete the review in the next week,” the news site said, citing an IMF comment.

Alexander Paraschiy: More than seven weeks have passed since the IMF commented on the expectation of a soon review for the fourth loan tranche. The “coming weeks” terminology of the Jan. 12 statement of IMF spokesman Gerry Rice has evolved to “next week,” which looks encouraging, but “expect” has changed to “hope,” which is not so encouraging. Provided there won’t be a government crisis in Ukraine in the coming weeks, we still believe there is a very high chance for Ukraine to get the next IMF tranche in March.