Ukraine to stop cooperating with IMF in 2023 – Markarova

Ukraine should finish cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2023, and the program being negotiated now should become the last one, Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova has said.
"My ambitious plan is to be able to complete it [the program with the IMF]. So that in 2023 we will not have a question about a new tranche, and we will support ourselves," Markarova said in an interview with Hromadske.

The minister noted that the government continued negotiations with the IMF mission regarding a new loan program for cooperation.

"The program we are working on is good. It will give us the opportunity to carry out many reforms, privatization, concessions and other things. But it should also allow us to leave it at the end, as Poland was able to do at the time," Markarova said.

As reported, on November 14, the IMF mission led by Ron van Rooden arrived in Kyiv to continue the discussion about the possibility of opening a new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Ukraine.

The National Bank stated that Ukraine should conclude a new long-term cooperation program with the International Monetary Fund totaling $5-10 billion. According to the NBU forecasts, the first tranche under this program could be received by the end of 2019. The National Bank expects it to be about $2 billion.

The IMF's previous 14-month Stand-By Arrangement for Ukraine was approved at the end of 2018. It provided for the allocation of three tranches. Ukraine received the first and only IMF tranche under this program on December 21, 2018.