The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expects a new programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2020, according to the bank's inflation report.
The NBU said that in 2018-2020, amid the gradual improvement of the investment climate, it expects the inflow of debt capital into the private sector to resume and foreign direct investment to gradually increase. In the meantime, the placement of eurobonds will allow Ukraine to refinance part of its external public debt, the peak of payments on which is expected in 2019-2020.
As a result, the surplus of the consolidated balance of payments in 2018 together with the IMF financing will allow Ukraine to accumulate 21.6bn dollars in international reserves. Then they will decrease a little due to the need to service debts.
At the same time, the NBU emphasized that "the key suggestion of the forecast is cooperation with the IMF under the EFF programme in 2018 and the signing of a new programme in 2020".
The NBU suggested this would guarantee Ukraine access to international capital markets in the foreseeable future.