Speaking at a joint press conference held at the National Bank of Ukraine today, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriia Gontareva and Mr Nikolay Gueorguiev, IMF mission chief for Ukraine, announced the results of the work of the IMF mission in Ukraine under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).

Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriia Gontareva pointed out that the IMF mission had made great progress and delivered tangible results. According to her, as before, the National Bank of Ukraine is set to continue cooperation with the IMF as part of a joint economic program.

"We will adopt the appropriate instruments of state-of-the-art monetary policy, which is rooted in the transition to a flexible exchange rate regime and inflation targeting framework. The National Bank of Ukraine will keep on replenishing the gold and foreign exchange reserves. To this end, the central bank will intervene in the foreign exchange market," said Ms Valeriia Gontareva.

In addition, Ms Valeriia Gontareva added that the monetary policy is not the sole priority of the Ukrainian central bank. “We are engaged in efforts to enhance financial stability and strengthen the resilience of the banking sector. To this end, we work in cooperation with experts from the IMF and will continue to do so over the coming months,” she said.

Mr Nikolay Gueorguiev, IMF mission chief for Ukraine, said that the IMF mission had reached understandings with the Ukrainian authorities on the policies necessary for the completion of the first review under the SBA. In this regard, the Ukrainian authorities had committed to take a number of policy actions prior to the completion of the review. As is usual practice, the understandings reached with the authorities are subject to approval by IMF management.Following approval of the completion of the review by the Executive Board, Ukraine will be able to receive a disbursement in an amount equivalent to about USD 1.4 billion in late August.

“The mission found that policies have generally been implemented as planned and that all but one of the performance criteria for end-May have been met. All structural benchmarks for the first review have been met as well. This is a significant achievement as the intensification of the conflict in the East means that the program has been implemented in an environment that is considerably more difficult than anticipated when it was launched,” noted Mr Nikolay Gueorguiev.

He added that notwithstanding the authorities' continued commitment to the program and good record of implementation so far, the authorities had decided to take a number of compensatory measures to limit the negative impact of the conflict in the short run, and ensure that key program objectives in fiscal policy, in the energy sector and in the area of monetary policy were achieved over the period of the two-year program.

“On the strength of these compensatory measures and continued implementation of other policies, the IMF staff team feels confident that the program can achieve its fundamental objectives of restoring internal and external macroeconomic equilibrium, generating sound and sustainable economic growth,” said Mr Nikolay Gueorguiev and assured those present at a press conference that IMF staff would remain in close consultation with the Ukrainian authorities and their international partners.

The IMF mission for the first review under a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) was working in Ukraine from June 24 to July 17, 2014.