Page 44 - UKRRptSept21

International Monetary Fund in August will be used to contribute to macroeconomic stability, as well as provide an opportunity to increase social benefits to citizens.
IMF SBA for Ukraine could be extended for six months, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko believes. He is hopeful the current 18-month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with the IMF could be extended for six months. Discussion are under way and Ukraine expects the IMF mission again in September.
Ukraine hoping for a new tranche from the IMF soon. Ukraine is also hoping to receive a $700 million tranche from the IMF in September, the adviser to the President Zelenskiy on economic issues, Oleh Ustenko, says
China’s infrastructure loan to Ukraine will be for about $400mn, largely for two projects – the Kyiv Ring Road and a new bridge over the Dnipro at Kremenchuk, Viktor Dovhan, chief negotiator of the loan, tells the Kyiv Post. Ukraine is to borrow the money from China’s Export-Import Bank at a 2% interest rate for 15 years, says Dovhan, now an advisor to the EU mission to Ukraine. Announced last month, the deal was short on details.
US considering providing Ukraine with guarantees on national debt? The Finance Minister said that the US is examining the possibility of resuming the practice of providing Ukraine with guarantees on government debt bonds. Commenting on his visit to Washington last month, Marchenko disclosed that "There was a meeting in the United States Department of the Treasury. We discussed issues of obtaining a new guarantee, renewing the old, other options for possible assistance to Ukraine from the United States." The key condition for such a decision will be continued cooperation with the IMF.
6.1.4 Budget dynamics - privatization
‘Big Privatization’ starts in August with the goal of raising almost half a billion dollars for the Treasury by the end of this year, Prime Minister Shmygal writes on Telegram. This would be more than five times the $83 million raised last year. Shmygal instructed the Economy Ministry and the State Property Fund to draw up by the end of August the priority list for big state companies to be sold in 2022 and 2023. ‘Big Privatization’ describes auctions of state companies expected to sell for more than $10 million.
A Ukraine court ruled that a titanium and magnesium plant 49% owned by oligarch Dmytro Firtash should return to full state ownership, the State Property Fund reports. According to the Fund, the mine was partly sold to Firtash on the condition that he spend $110mn to modernize the complex, Ukraine’s only producer of titanium sponge. Instead, the Fund says, Firtash used the money to pay his other debts, leaving only $750,000 for the modernization.
The privatization of Europe's largest titanium and zirconium miner has been postponed to October to give the 15 interested bidders more time to study documents and prepare bids, Ukraine’s State Property Fund announced yesterday. Investors interested in United Mining and Chemical Company had only two months to prepare for the auction, scheduled for tomorrow, a tight window that yielded two unqualified bidders and one qualified bidder. A floor bid price of $137 million had been set for the company which extracts 300,000
44 UKRAINE Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com