National Bank of Ukraine: We cannot survive without IMF

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has issued a special report, wherein it claims that intensifying cooperation with the International Monetary Fund is vital for the macro-financial stability in the country.

“Postponement of necessary steps to resume cooperation with official creditors narrows the window of opportunities to raise necessary funds for payments of state debt in 2018-2020. Therefore, the National Bank considers it vital to boost cooperation efforts with IMF to maintain macro-financial stability of Ukraine,” UNIAN reports citing an extract of the report.

The National Bank anticipates an IMF loan for about 2 billion dollars in 2018, which along with assistance from other partners will help increasing international reserves to 21.6 billion dollars.

Earlier, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said the major economic problem of Ukraine is pressure of an over $65-billion foreign debt, which was accumulated mainly in 2007-2014. In March 2018, Ukraine paid 1.4 billion dollars of foreign debts.

To continue cooperation with IMF, the Supreme Rada needs to pass a law to set up an anti-corruption court in compliance with the Venice Commission recommendations, whereas the government needs to increase gas prices to the import parity and ensure a mechanism for their automatic adjustment to the global market prices. According to an expert of Atlantic Council❶, termination of cooperation of Ukraine and IMF will result in significant devaluation of Ukrainian national currency.

Earlier EADaily reported that not all Ukrainian experts consider cooperation with IMF positive. Economist Victor Skarshevsky, in turn, believes that another forex tranche from IMF will just deteriorate the economic situation in the country.

❶Организация, деятельность которой признана нежелательной на территории РФ