The Minister of Finance of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko said that the final version of the memorandum, which will be agreed upon following the revision of the program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is not yet ready.
“It depends on the IMF. By and large, we do not have any difficulties that would prevent us from starting negotiations on the memorandum now. By and large, the draft memorandum could be discussed now. But there will be a lot of nuances in the wording, in the details. There will be a lot of preconditions”, – Marchenko said.
He also clarified that the “preconditions” will relate to anti-corruption reform. Earlier, the Office of the President of Ukraine stated that Kiev expects the first revision of the IMF program before July: this will allow receiving a loan tranche as early as September 2021.
The IMF allocated the first tranche to Ukraine under the stand by credit program in the amount of $2.1 billion in June 2020. The total amount of the 18-month program should be $ 5 billion, but the mission of the Fund, which worked in Ukraine online this winter, did not decide on the allocation of a new tranche to Kiev.
The head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Kirill Shevchenko, said that Kiev “does not even consider a scenario in which it will not receive funds from the IMF.” According to him, the lack of external financing may lead to the fact that more funds will have to be sought in the domestic market, the amount of which is extremely limited.