New 14 month Stand By Agreement of USD 3.9 billion with the IMF Approved by the Board of Directors

The IMF Board of Directors has just approved a new 14-month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) at its meeting in Washington DC. The total programme amount is USD 3.9 billion.

The SBA program approval enables the immediate disbursement of USD 1.4 billion. The remainder will be available upon completion of semi-annual reviews, planned for May and November 2019.

The SBA program shall help Ukraine maintain its macro-economic stability during the presidential and parliamentary elections cycle in 2019.The new programme will be primarily focused on preserving the macro-economic stability and keeping Ukraine’s economy on its way of sustainable growth.

Its focus is also set on continuing fiscal consolidation for the purpose of a steady decrease in public debt level, maintaining flexible exchange rate regime and implementing reforms in selected areas. This will support the reduction of inflation to the medium-term target set by the National Bank of Ukraine (5% range) as well as the increase of Ukraine’s international reserves, through tight monetary policy. The envisaged reforms comprise further improvement of tax administration, administration in the financial and energy sectors as well as enhancement of public governance and the implementation of additional anti-corruption measures.

“The IMF is an anchor lender to Ukraine alongside other Ukraine’s official lenders providing us with concessional financing which is unavailable on the market. While the IMF funding increases NBU reserves, the funds raised though the WB and EU go into the budget and help Ukraine secure macroeconomic stability which is especially important during the election year” – commented Ms. Oksana Markarova, the Minister of Finance of Ukraine.

This programme is the 10th IMF programme to Ukraine.

Regulatory changes that Ukraine is committed to implement as part of the program and the structural benchmarks to be achieved are listed in the Memorandum that will be published once signed.