The Ukrainian budget is 40% filled by the West, but IMF support is still not enough - Shmygal
Ukraine, as a warring country, feels unpleasant slippage on the part of its Western partners represented by the IMF.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal stated this during the Yalta European Strategy forum, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Wartime economics has economic and financial sustainability as its foundation. We are working on this and it is very important to maintain macro-financial stability. We do this with the help of our partners, we do this with the help of our team. And of course, without this it is impossible to win. We have to finance the army, we have to fulfill our social responsibilities to the people and this costs a lot.
Of course, we're spending almost a trillion this year. We have planned 1 trillion hryvnia for the next year to maintain our armed forces. We spend quite a lot of money on social obligations. These include pensions and new types of activities. This is 7 million internally displaced people, this is mine clearance. That is, expenses that did not exist in peacetime.
And of course, about 40% of the budget is additionally financed by our partners, for which we are also grateful to them. The same goes for arms supplies and support for macro-financial stability. This is very important for us, it is very important to understand that, having macroeconomic self-sufficiency, having a budget that we fill by a third, we fill another third from the internal reserve,” said the Ukrainian Prime Minister.
At the same time, he complained that the IMF was in no hurry to help Ukraine and expressed hope that Western partners would help Ukraine reach the fund.
“Having leadership political positions from the United States and Europe, we have a rather passive attitude from the IMF. Of course, we have been working with the IMF fully all this time. We had good relations and good attitude from the IMF in 2014-2015 when this war began.
The IMF really supported Ukraine at that time, the leadership supported Ukraine. We received $17 billion in support from the IMF. Today, unfortunately, cooperation with the IMF is completely passive. But we are making every effort, we have handed over absolutely all the documents to them and we call on the IMF, we call on our partners to step up their activities.
It is very important. Because the IMF is an important support for the further financial movement of our state together with our partners.
We work almost every day with the IMF team. The IMF showed extraordinary leadership in 2014-2015. The IMF was quite responsive at the start of this full-scale intervention in March. We received very fast help from them. Now, unfortunately, we have relative slippage in support from the IMF for the warring country.
We are working very constructively with the US, the European Commission and the EU. We had very interesting and very constructive negotiations with the German Chancellor, and I am convinced that all partners will support us. But the IMF has always been a unifying factor and it is very important to have the IMF on board. And it is very important to have leadership from the IMF and to have partnership,” Shmygal concluded.
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