Ukraine negotiating increase in IMF financing - prime minister
KYIV. Oct 23 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk expects a new government to be set up quickly after the upcoming parliamentary elections, which would make it possible to hold talks with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission on expanding the stand-by arrangement for Ukraine as early as in November.
"We want to hold the elections and form a new government as soon as possible so as to invite an IMF mission as early as in November to adapt the IMF program to the new current realities," Yatsenyuk said in an interview published on segodnya.ua.
"We need to increase the sum of the assistance. This is objective," he added.
The program was written in peacetime, while now it is being drafted taking into consideration the antiterrorist operation in Donbas, which has lasted more than half a year and the country is incurring gigantic losses, he said.
At the same time, Yatsenyuk declined to specify by how much the arrangement could be increased. "I can't tell you these figures. Negotiations are not held this way. The mission will come and calculate the full budget balance to see how much we will collect, how much donors will give us, what our debt obligations are, and so on," he said.
Without assistance from the IMF and the EU, Ukraine would not be fully able to pay for current supplies of Russian gas if they are resumed, he said.
It was reported earlier that IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde suggested on October 10 that for Ukraine to maintain its economy, it would need more foreign loans from different sources, not only from the IMF.
In April 2014, the amount of foreign financial assistance for Ukraine was estimated at $30 billion, including over $17 billion the IMF was ready to issue under the stand-by arrangement.
Experts from leading world investment banks currently estimate Ukraine's need for additional foreign financing at more than $5 billion.