Your trusted source

Ukraine is ready to begin negotiations of restructuring its foreign debt, Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said on Tuesday, TASS reported.

"We will begin talks on restructuring," she told Ukraine television Fifth Channel.

She said Kiev hoped its debt would not exceed 7- percent of GDP till 2020 and the debt servicing sum would not exceed ten percent of GDP.

According to Jaresko, Kiev should be over with negotiations with foreign creditors by late May, by which time the IMF programme was to be revised. "There are a number of conditions for further loans from the Fund, in particular those concerning reforms of state companies, changes in the system of financing public health, laws on the Ukrainian National Banks’ independence, on the natural gas market," she said.

If agreements on restructuring were reached, the International Monetary Fund would extend the second tranche to Ukraine in late May, she added.