KIEV, December 28 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine next year will be able to do without a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov announced on Thursday.
“Ukraine for two years already lives without IMF credits and, certainly, will do without them also next year,” he said in an interview to the country’s leading TV channels.
At the same time, he said, the Government intends to cooperate with the Fund and to find an acceptable compromise. “Ukraine would like to receive IMF loan resources and use them to solve the problems of the country, however, the IMF mostly directs its resources to support monetary stability,” said the prime minister.
He stressed that the anti-crisis measures offered by the IMF to a number of countries, including European, “have proved inefficient and led to the stagnation of these economies.” “I have not given up hope that we can agree. Not only the IMF has the resources. It’s strangely accepted in our country that there are no other options but the IMF. Actually, there are enough resources in the world, and we are currently actively working on their attracting to the Ukrainian economy on favourable for us terms,” Azarov said.
The IMF mission planned to visit Kiev in December to discuss the agreement on a standby loan (one of the standard IMF tools), but postponed the visit until the second half of January. Last time the representatives of the organisation visited Ukraine at the end of October. The IMF technical mission discussed then, in particular, the government’s program of reforming the financial sector, the creation in the country of more favourable conditions for bank lending, as well as reform priorities for next year.
In July 2010, a new program of cooperation between Ukraine and the IMF was approved that will be completed later this year. It envisages the provision of a loan worth over 15 billion US dollars at 3.5 percent annual interest to Kiev.
Immediately after the approval of the program, Ukraine received the first tranche of 1.89 billion US dollars. The decision on the allocation of the second tranche of 1.5 billion US dollars was made by the IMF Board of Directors on December 22, 2010. However, Kiev never received this tranche.
“Ukraine is a reliable partner of the IMF, it timely returns loans and intends to continue its effective and mutually beneficial cooperation with the Fund,” Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich said earlier.