IMF give Ukraine $17.5bn in aid for economic reform
The International Monetary Fund has agreed to provide Ukraine with US $17.5 billion to help support economic reforms.
The bailout deal could climb to around $40bnover the next four years with help from other lenders such as Europe and the US.
Ukraine has so far received $4.6bn as part of a $17bn aid package from the IMF agreed on last year, but that programme has run into trouble as the war ravaging the country’s eastern region has weighed on its economic prospects.
Facing bankruptcy, Ukraine last month asked the IMF to replace its programme with a new one to restore confidence in its finances.
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said today that “this new programme offers an important opportunity for Ukraine to move its economy forward at a critical moment in the country’s history”.
The announcement came just before leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany emerged from marathon talks to announce a peace deal for eastern Ukraine.
The four-year package “would support immediate economic stabilisation in Ukraine as well as a set of bold policy reforms aimed at restoring robust growth of the medium term and improving living standards for the Ukrainian people”, Ms Lagarde said.
Kiev has also received loans from the European Union and the United States, both of whom have recently promised more help.
Ms Lagarde said the IMF support would be backed by other international financing.
“From these various sources taken together, a total financing package of around 40 billion US dollars is estimated over the four-year period,” she told reporters.
“This programme will require the authorities’ steadfast determination to reform the economy,” she underlined.
She praised Kiev’s reform efforts so far, saying that the government has “not only reached their targeted deficit for this year but they have exceeded the objective and produced a better result than was expected”.
