IMF mission led by new head to begin working in Ukraine on Thursday - IMF
KYIV. Nov 11 (Interfax) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission led by new head Ron Van Ruden will begin working in Kyiv on November 12, Jerome Vacher, IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine, said in a report.
In the course of the previous technical discussions, which lasted in the period between September 22 and October 2, the mission will conduct further discussions at a political level with the Ukrainian authorities in the context of the economic reform program implemented with the support of the IMF, Vacher said.
The four-year EFF program worth a total of SDR 12.348 billion ($17.04 billion according to the current exchange rate) was approved in March 2015. It initially envisaged the provision to Ukraine of three more tranches of SDR 1.18 billion (about $1.63 billion) each in 2015, after the first tranche of $5 billion. The quarterly tranches will be reduced in 2016-2018 to SDR 0.44 billion ($0.61 billion).
The provision to Ukraine of the third tranche under the EFF program is delayed. "The IMF has left and therefore we are not ready to say how to balance [the cost reduction due to the tax reform]," Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said after the IMF mission's visit in September, adding that the fourth tranche will not be received this year.
The Finance Ministry has come up with proposals to reduce state budget expenditures by 60 million hryvni, but they have to be approved by the government to be further submitted to the Rada. According to Jaresko, among the other remaining issues in the negotiations with the IMF are further drastic steps to fight corruption and a series of reforms in some other areas.
In the period from June 4, 2013 until recently, the IMF mission was led by Nikolai Georgiev, who had replaced Christopher Jarvis in the post.
