Published in Kyiv Post

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will consider the allocation of the next tranche of the fund's stand-by loan to Ukraine at a meeting on May 13.

Ukrainian Vice Premier Hryhoriy Nemyria told this to journalists in Moscow on Wednesday, after a phone conversation with IMF Mission Chief in Ukraine Ceyla Pazarbasioglu.

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Published by Interfax

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has spoken of progress in the talks with Russia on the payment for the transit of natural gas that has to be pumped into Ukrainian storage facilities for the next cold season.

"I believe that the talks ended successfully," Tymoshenko told journalists in Moscow on Wednesday, answering a question from Interfax.

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Published by Ukrinform

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says the Cabinet of Ministers has enough political will for implementation of the structural reforms envisaged by the joint program for cooperation with the International Monetary Fund. She said this during her meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, the liaison department of the Cabinet of Ministers' Secretariat reported.

The Prime Minister emphasized that prolongation of cooperation with the IMF had a hard going because of the political crisis tearing up this country.

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Published in UNIAN

According to an UNIAN correspondent, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Hryhoriy Nemyrya said this to a press conference on Tuesday, after the fourth session of the Ukrainian-German High Level Group for Economic Collaboration.

According to him, considering the German experience in holding large-scale sports measures, the sides agreed to sign a framework agreement between Germany and Ukraine concerning collaboration in the sphere of Euro-2012. He noted that the document will be worked out in line with the model of the agreement signed between Germany and the South-African Republic, which hosts the World Football Championship in 2010.

Published in Kyiv Post

The World Bank is ready to boost the co-operation with Ukraine, the press service of Vice Prime Minister for European Integration Hryhorii Nemyria said.

In the frames of the official visit to the United States, Nemyria held the meeting with the executive director of the World Bank Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The sides discussed the condition and prospects of cooperation between Ukraine and the bank.

Okonjo-Iweala welcomed the progress in the relations with the World Bank and expressed her readiness to boost the co-operation.

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Published by NSDC

Ukrainian and Russian Prime Ministers Yulia Tymoshenko and Vladimir Putin will discuss cooperation between their countries in the energy sector at a meeting in Moscow on April 29.

At a meeting of the committee for economic cooperation of the Ukrainian-Russian interstate commission, they are also planning to consider the implementation of promising issues of the activity of the committee's sub-commissions, which were approved in a protocol at the third meeting of the committee in Kyiv in April 2008. In particular, the premiers will discuss ways to step up trade and economic cooperation in the context of measures to tackle the financial and economic crises, as well as interaction in the field of industry and transport, aviation and space sectors, and agriculture. A number of bilateral documents are to be signed at the meeting.

Published by NRCU

In frames of his official visit to the United States, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and International Integration Hryhoriy Nemyria delivered a report at the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings.

In a report entitled : 'The current political and economic developments in Ukraine', Nemyria focused on the burning issues of relations development between Ukraine and Russia, political situation in Ukraine in the run-up to a presidential election, the government measures to overcome the effects of the global financial and economic turmoil. The Ukrainian official also held a number of meetings with representatives of the US National Security Council, US Senator, Co-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar to discuss the implementation of the Ukraine-US Charter on Strategic Partnership and development of bilateral relations for 2009.

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Published in ITAR-TASS

The Ukrainian authorities will observe the understandings with Russia on gas questions, said Ukrainian vice-premier for European integration Hryhoriy Nemyria, speaking at a news conference at the Brookings Institute in Washington on Wednesday.

According to the vice-premier, the signing of the agreement between Russia and Ukraine last January at the heat of the gas conflict "became an example of how governments even during the crisis can take decisions, influencing energy security not only of Ukraine and Russia, but also of the entire continent".

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Published in Kyiv Post

Ukrainian Vice Premier Hryhoriy Nemyria will leave for Washington, the United States, on Tuesday to participate in a spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).

"Today I am leaving for Washington to participate in a spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank," he said in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Nemyria said that he is planning to meet the management of these organizations, as well as officials from the new U.S. administration in order to "make use of the positive signal given to Ukraine last week [concerning the IMF's readiness to allocate the next tranche of its loan to Ukraine]."

Government Press Office

April 21-26, Vice Prime Minister for European and International Integration Hryhoriy Nemyria will be on official visit to Washington.

Hryhoriy Nemyria leads a delegation from Ukraine that will participate in the spring meetings of IMF and World Bank Board of Governors.

In the course of his visit Hryhoriy Nemyria will hold meetings with leaders of the IMF, World Bank and representatives of the US Government and Congress.

Hryhoriy Nemyria will also take the floor in Brookings Institution, during a meeting of the US-Ukraine Business Council and will participate in a conference “The First 100 Days. Opportunities in Crisis: Empowering Society in a Time of Economic Turmoil” sponsored by the Bertelsmann Fund jointly with the Financial Times.

Published in Inform issue #108
See the full issue here.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission in Ukraine has provided initial approval for the payment of a second tranche of the $16.4 billion stand-by loan agreed last November. The IMF mission is recommending to its board to increase the second payment from $1.86 billion to $2.8 billion. A final decision by the board is expected in mid-May with payment shortly thereafter.

The breakthrough announcement was made by the head of the IMF mission to Kyiv, Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, who said, "I am happy to announce that we have achieved agreement at the level of experts on the completion of the first revision of the programme. The memorandum will be submitted for endorsement by the leaders of the Fund.”

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Published in ForUm

The mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will propose allocating around $2.8 billion in the next tranche of its loan to Ukraine under the stand-by program, IMF Mission Chief in Ukraine Ceyla Pazarbasioglu has said.

"We have agreed our position with the Ukrainian leadership, and propose that the leadership of the International Monetary Fund, in particular its Executive Board, allocate around $2.8 billion in the next tranche of the IMF's loan to Ukraine," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday, KyivPost informs.

She said that the memorandum of economic and financial policies between Ukraine and the IMF had been agreed at an expert level and that it would be submitted for approval by the fund's management.

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Published in UNIAN

A new report from Blue Ribbon Analytical and Advisory Centre highlights the urgency for high-priority economic and institutional reforms; argues that economic crisis could open windows of opportunity for state reforms in Ukraine, according to the UN Office to Ukraine.

A new report issued by the Blue Ribbon Analytical and Advisory Centre, an independent body of renowned national and international experts that operates with support from the Delegation of European Commission and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, has identified high-priority reforms that the Government and Parliament need urgently to enact to weather economic recession and promote growth and better living standards in Ukraine. While saluting the country’s high rankings for political freedoms and development of democratic institutions, which are higher than those of other countries in the CIS, the report warns that in many areas time has been wasted and reforms are long overdue.

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Published in UNIAN / Bloomberg

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said her government is prepared to approve three laws by decree to help restore the flow of funds from an International Monetary Fund loan after parliament refused to debate the legislation.

“Today, we will adopt necessary changes through government decrees, which will lay the foundation for resuming cooperation with international financial organizations,” Tymoshenko told reporters at a Cabinet meeting today in Kiev. “The decrees will allow the reforms which were supposed to be passed by Parliament today.”

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Published in Foreign Policy
By Federico Fubini

Yulia Tymoshenko talks with FP about engaging the West, placating Russia, and trying to keep her country in one piece.

As Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko rushes out of her Kiev office to greet me, her tight handshake and tense smile make it clear that she didn't get to be the most powerful woman east of Berlin by being a soft character.

This is a tough day for her and an important time for Ukraine. Later she will speak before parliament to defend controversial new budget measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for unblocking a badly needed financial rescue package. The amount at stake is relatively small, a $1.8 billion second installment of a $16.4 billion loan. But without the IMF, there is little hope Ukraine will regain enough market confidence to roll over the $40 billion in bank loans and bonds coming due this year. By mid-April, Tymoshenko needs to push pension reform and higher gas tariffs through the legislature - hardly a comfortable position for a leading candidate in the presidential elections expected on Oct. 25.

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Published in Kyiv Post

The Ukrainian authorities are united in their desire to resume the country's cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said.

"The Ukrainian side wants all of us to find a way out of this difficult situation and continue our cooperation [with the IMF]," she said at a meeting with an IMF mission in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Tymoshenko said that in the last several years, Ukraine "has taken all of the necessary measures, despite the crisis, in order to take those decisions that help us balance finances in Ukraine."

She said that the government had reduced subsidies from the state budget to the Pension Fund, because the latter "has over-fulfilled its own revenues."

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Published in Inform issue #107
See the full issue here.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission has announced that it will return to Kyiv this week, to resume talks on granting Ukraine the next tranche of the $16.4 billion credit facility announced last October. Payment of the next tranche is reliant on parliament passing the necessary legislation to meet the IMF’s fiscal requirements.

An IMF statement read: "The IMF has received strong assurances by the President and the Prime Minister about their intention to obtain parliamentary approval, during the week of 13-17 April, of laws to strengthen the financial position of the pension fund and Naftohaz, and laws agreed with the IMF and the World Bank to facilitate the implementation of the bank restructuring strategy."

Last week parliament approved several anti-crisis laws (see next article) before lawmakers from the Party of Regions disrupted further bills from being passed by blockading the speaker’s podium.

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65 % of citizens of Ukraine are convinced the Government of Yulia Tymoshenko will curb the crisis. The public opinion poll demonstrated in the course of the Shuster Live program on TRK Ukrayina channel.

“I am grateful to you for the support. I will spare no effort for you to feel our country is strong,” the Prime Minister of Ukraine emphasized.

Published in Kyiv Post

National joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy will pay Russia's Gazprom for natural gas supplied in March 2009 on time and in full, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said.

"Gas payments have been made on time and in full since January 1… as will the payments for March, as foreseen by the contracts," she said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

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Within the scope of his official visit to Paris, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and International Integration Hryhoriy Nemyria took part in a ministerial conference dedicated to the launch of a Eurasia Competitiveness Programme for the Southern Caucasus and Ukraine, in the frames of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“I am pleased to see that the OECD has expressed a desire to facilitate carrying out reforms and sustainable development in Ukraine and countries of the Southern Caucasus,” Hryhoriy Nemyria said at the beginning of his speech.

According to him, right now, in the time of a global financial crunch the launch of an Eurasia Competitiveness Programme is rather timely. The Programme completely corresponds to the efforts of the Government directed to mitigation of the fallouts of the crisis and will enable to improve investment climate in Ukraine, carry out necessary reforms, notably in financial sector, and raise competitiveness of our state.

Hryhoriy Nemyria urged to deepen cooperation between Ukraine and the OECD, especially to intensify participation in the activity of committees of this organization.