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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Ukraine, IMF to finalize memorandum of cooperation

The National Bank of Ukraine announced on Friday that delegates from the International Monetary Fund will finalize a memorandum of cooperation with the interim Ukraine government by Wednesday.

Stepan Kubiv, the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, said the IMF mission is content with the cooperation given by Ukrainian authorities.

"The authorities' comprehensive reform program covers a wide range of issues and additional work needs to be completed to advance program discussions," Kubiv said. "The National Bank of Ukraine is holding detailed negotiations to ensure that each clause covering its activities is well drafted."

Kubiv said the main work in the negotiations will have been completed by Wednesday.

According to the IMF, the Ukrainian economy shrank 0.3 percent last year after barely growing in 2012. Although the country has to pay back approximately $30 billion in sovereign debt in the next two years, it continues to spend billions of dollars on natural gas subsidies that have encouraged energy use, making the country overly reliant on fuel imports from Russia.

Ukrainian exports have suffered because the former government refused to let the Ukrainian hryvnia depreciate against the dollar to control the costs of imports and protect Ukrainian banks from currency fluctuations. The policy hurt exports, which dropped an estimated 7.4 percent last year.