IMF program review mission to arrive Ukraine “later in September”

A virtual IMF review mission in Ukraine is planned for
September, and the date will be announced later, closer to the mission’s start,
IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told a press briefing on Sept. 16. He repeated that
the remaining issues for the review are: strengthening the governance and
autonomy of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), judicial reform, restoring and
strengthening the anti-corruption framework and the fiscal position. Rice
refused to provide any timeline for the next IMF tranche under the program, nor
probability for extension of the program, which terminates in December.

Recall, earlier this week, PM Denys Shmyhal stated
that he expected the IMF mission would start next week
and the next IMF tranche will arrive in Ukraine in late November or December.
He also assured that Ukraine had implemented all the structural benchmarks
under the program.

Alexander Paraschiy: It seems that the IMF mission has not been scheduled for the next
week, otherwise there would already be information regarding scheduling. Among
the outstanding issues listed by Rice, the easiest looks to be the question on
fiscal issues: Ukraine’s 2022 budget has been drafted with an acceptable deficit of 3.5% of GDP. Progress with judicial and anti-corruption
issues is yet to be reached. Also, it is not very clear what the NBU governance
question stands for. As before, we remain a bit skeptical about the IMF’s
tranche in 2021, keeping its probability at no more than 50%.