IMF to develop new long-term program for Ukraine

The International Monetary Fund will develop a new long-term lending program for Ukraine

Kristalina Georgieva, IMF managing director, stated this in an interview with the Center for Global Development president.

As she noted, in the coming weeks, the Fund's mission will discuss this with the economic group of Ukraine.

Georgieva, in particular, talked about the conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

"Very good, very engaged, very substantive call with President Zelensky. We discussed, first, how we can immediately be of help to Ukraine. 

Remember, we were the first institution to provide financial support to Ukraine through emergency financing. At that time, it was 1.4 billion [dollars].

We are still the largest source of financing from international financial institutions. But in meanwhile, the needs of Ukraine have only grown. So, we discussed how we can potentially deploy the food shock window, provided our Board approves it, and what could be a potentially a timeline for it, as well as the likely size, which would be in the ballpark of what we had done last time around.

Secondly, we discussed a longer-term engagement with Ukraine and how we can build towards a program that can more comprehensively benefit Ukraine. We are going to modify somewhat our engagement capacity with the proposal we have made to our Board. 

That is a build-up towards a full-fledged Fund program. And we agreed that a Fund mission will engage with the economic team of Ukraine in within the next weeks and then and then create a pathway of engagement that is deeper. 

Three, President Zelensky was very interested in how the Fund could work with other institutions, kind of lead institutions on the policy support for Ukraine, and, more broadly on, imagining how Ukraine transitions from where it is today to a sound future," the IMF director said.

According to Georgieva, during the conversation, Zelensky clarified that he expects continued cooperation with the IMF in macroeconomics and monetary policy.

The Managing Director of the IMF also confirmed that, while the program is being developed, the Fund plans to provide Ukraine with additional emergency financing of $1.4 billion.

Reference

Ukraine will receive an additional 1.4 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund as part of the emergency financing program.

It was previously reported that the International Monetary Fund is looking at ways to provide emergency financing to countries facing food price shocks caused by the war in Ukraine. They will discuss the measures at an executive board meeting on Monday, September 12.

If approved, the IMF will temporarily increase access limits and allow all member countries to borrow up to 50% of their IMF quota under the IMF's Rapid Financing Facility and the Rapid Lending Facility, which serves low-income countries.