Page 36 - bne IntelliNews Ukraine Country Report May 2017

The IMF in March postponed for two weeks the release of the $1bn tranche while it and Kyiv both assessed the economic cost of the official trade blockade of Ukraine’s rebel-held eastern regions imposed last month. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said that Fund experts had concluded that the blockade would only have a moderate impact on economic growth and did not threaten Ukraine’s inflation target. On March 20, however, the NBU revised its 2017 GDP growth forecast down from 2.8% to 1.9% due to the government blockade that followed a de facto blockade of the war-torn Donbas region by war veterans since January.
Ukraine also received €600mn from the EU on April 6. Ukraine received the first €600mn loan from the EU in July 2015. The disbursement of the next wire – out of a total of €1.8bn – has now been delayed for more than a year. Kyiv’s ban on timber exports remains the sole impediment to the receipt of the second tranche.
The Ukrainian government has included privatisation of state-owned Odesa Port Plant (OPP) and a number of electricity companies to the priority action plan for 2017. Privatisation tenders are scheduled for the second quarter - the third quarter of the year. The Ukrainian authorities "remain committed" to the privatisation of OPP by the first half of 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its country report published on April 4. In December, the Ukrainian authorities failed to sell via a second tender a 99.567% stake in OPP, which is located on the country's southern Black Sea coast.
The government will seek to sale Ukraine's second largest thermal power generator Centrenergo , electricity supply companies Kharkivoblenergo, Zaporizhiaoblenergo, Mykolaivoblenergo, Khmelnytskoblenergo and Ternopiloblenergo.
6.2 Debt
DEBT 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 EFFF
External debt (US$bn, 80 101. 103. 117. 126. 134. 142. 126. 118. 122. 124. 126. 129. eop) 743261371283
External debt (% of 55.8 55.3 91 86.1 77.4 77.3 79.1 96.2 ann'd GDP, eop)
133. 131. 126. 117. 105. 7 3 6 1 4
FX reserves (US$bn, 32.5 31.5 26.5 34.6 31.8 24.5 20.4 7.5 13.3 15 17 17.5 18 eop)
FX reserves (% of ann'd 22.6 17.2 23.3 25.4 19.5 14.1 11.4 5.7 15 16.1 17.3 16.2 14.7 GDP, eop)
External debt / FX 2.5 3.2 3.9 3.4 4 5.5 7 17.7 10.4 9.4 8.4 8.3 8.2 reserves (x, eop)
FX reserves imports cov 5.6 3.9 5.9 6 4.1 2.9 2.5 1.3 3.3 3.6 3.7 3.7 3.4 (months)
Source: ICU
36 RUSSIA Country Report April 2017 www.intellinews.com