Ukraine receives extra $500 mln loan from Japan - Finance Ministry

MOSCOW. June 27 (Interfax) - Ukraine has received an additional 65 billion Japanese yen, or around $500 million of a soft loan as part of a loan agreement signed by Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) President Akihito Tanaka.

It is a 30-year soft loan with 1% annual interest and a ten-year grace period, the Ukrainian media quoted Ukraine's Finance Ministry as saying on Monday.

The money has been transferred to the state budget to finance priority social and humanitarian expenses and healthcare, the ministry said.

Ukraine and Japan on June 7 signed an additional agreement on JICA's emergency economic recovery development policy loan, increasing the size of the loan by 65 billion yen to 78 billion yen, or $600 million, the Finance Ministry said.

The first 13 billion yen, or $100 million, were disbursed to Ukraine under this agreement on May 24.

The Ukrainian Finance Ministry initially expected the amount of foreign financing to increase to $4.8 billion in June from $1.5 billion in May. However, before this Japanese loan was disbursed, Ukraine had received a mere $1.5 billion or so in foreign financing since the beginning of June.