11 May 2021, Tuesday, 18:20 164

Ukraine Did Not Start Negotiations With IMF On New Cooperation Program - Shmyhal

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

Ukraine did not start negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a new cooperation program.

This was announced by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in an interview with RBC Ukraine, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"We did not start negotiations with the IMF on a new program. We still have the current program, in fact, we have two tranches ahead," the Prime Minister said.

At the same time, he added that Ukraine works with the IMF almost on a weekly basis.

“During the last communication a couple of weeks ago, the key issues were anti-corruption, NACB, NACP and the High Council of Public Justice. There are no other issues. Other issues are technical, like macro indicators for 2022-2023, budget declaration. There was also the issue of reforming the SSU in terms of transferring powers on economic crimes to the Bureau of Economic Security. The law on Bureau of Economic Security has been adopted, the law on the reform of the SSU has been adopted in the first reading," Shmyhal added.

He clarified that there was one more point about unblocking large privatization - the law was adopted.

According to him, as soon as these laws are adopted in the second reading, Ukraine will start negotiations on the text of the memorandum to continue cooperation and receive a tranche.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the International Monetary Fund is waiting for proposals from Ukraine to continue negotiations.

In the period from December 21 to 23 and from January 11 to February 12, IMF specialists discussed with representatives of the Ukrainian authorities the progress in the implementation of measures and reforms, which are part of the government's action program supported by the stand-by agreement.

After that, IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine Gosta Ljungman said that more progress is needed in reforms in favor of completing the first revision of the program of cooperation with Ukraine.

In early March, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal named five key points for continuing cooperation with the International Monetary Fund: the end of the heating season with a fixed gas price, the approval of macroeconomic indicators for 2022-2023, and three key issues - judicial reform (the law on HCPJ), the law on strengthening of criminal liability for unfair declaration and the draft law on NACB.