Ukraine expecting decision on new IMF tranche on Sept 14

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said the decision to provide a new tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be made on September 14.

"Tomorrow, on September 14, we would have a new billion – the IMF tranche that would be a powerful foundation for our reform," Poroshenko said on Tuesday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a kindergarten in Dnipropetrovsk region.

As reported, the four-year EFF program for Ukraine totaling SDR 12.348 billion (about $17 billion at a current exchange rates), opened by the IMF in March 2015, originally foresaw quarterly revisions of the program, as well as the issue of four tranches to Kyiv in 2015, with another four in 2016.

However, Ukraine was able to get only the first two tranches and then there was a time gap due to the political crisis and the government change. Negotiations on renewal of funding were resumed after the appearance of a new Cabinet headed by Volodymyr Groysman in April. Initially it was assumed that the third tranche would amount to about $1.7 billion, and the IMF Board of Directors will be able to take their decision in June. But due to non-fulfillment by Ukraine of a number of conditions, the terms have been constantly postponed. This is also the reason why the amount of the loan tranche was reduced to $1 billion.