Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Finance meet with the President of the World Bank and the Managing Director of the IMF in Washington, DC

On April 17, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal and Minister of Finance of Ukraine Sergii Marchenko met with President of the World Bank Group Ajay Banga and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva in Washington, DC. 

• Meeting with Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva.

The Ukrainian side congratulated Kristalina Georgieva on her re-election as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and thanked for her personal contribution to supporting Ukraine. 

The participants of the meeting discussed the economic situation in Ukraine, the current state of cooperation and the performance of the terms of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement by Ukraine.

"The IMF has been a reliable partner of Ukraine for many years. In critical situations, the Fund has demonstrated leadership in supporting our country. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Ministry of Finance has attracted about USD 8.1 billion of budget support from the IMF. USD 5.4 billion of the total amount was received under the EFF program, the first ever cooperation program for a country at war. The EFF program is a guarantee of trust in cooperation with international partners and helps to attract large-scale funding from donors, including the G7 countries and the European Union," the Minister of Finance of Ukraine said.

Ukraine has already performed 21 structural benchmarks under the EFF program, 14 of which are in the area of fiscal policy and the financial sector. Legislative initiatives have been adopted to improve the Budget Code, to strengthen tax policy and public debt management, the National Revenue Strategy has been approved, measures have been developed to mobilize State Budget revenues, etc.

The next review of the program is due at the end of June 2024. Before that, Ukraine has to perform two structural benchmarks in the area of governance and anti-corruption and in the fiscal area. 

Sergii Marchenko emphasized that Ukraine continues to work on the implementation of the jointly defined reforms, which in turn will help to strengthen financial stability and maintain macroeconomic stability. 

• Meeting with the President of the World Bank Group, Ajay Banga.

The topics discussed included the sources of financing for the State Budget for 2024 and the status of implementation of existing joint projects. 

"From the first days of the full-scale war, the World Bank has shown flexibility and adaptability to emergency conditions, which helped to promptly make and implement decisions to help Ukraine. In 2022-2024, the amount of funding for the World Bank's portfolio of existing projects is the largest in all the years of cooperation - USD 31 billion was raised for both budget support and investment projects. During this period, 8 new projects were launched to support the State Budget, including the largest PEACE in Ukraine project in the history of the World Bank, which has attracted more than USD 25 billion," said Sergii Marchenko. 

The World Bank helps to mobilize financial resources to support Ukraine through its own mechanisms from various development partners. The largest donors are the USA, Japan, the UK and Norway. The Ministry of Finance, in cooperation with the World Bank, ensures the transparency of attracting and using external financing. 

Financial assistance from the World Bank alone has amounted to over USD 2 billion since February 2022.

The Minister of Finance of Ukraine noted that the World Bank is a strategically important partner of Ukraine in the process of reconstruction and recovery. At the same time, he added that although reconstruction is one of the main priorities of the Government, the key task is to finance all priority State Budget expenditures. The need for external financing for 2024 reaches USD 37.2 billion.