AFP, Kiev :
The International Monetary Fund will release the next $1 billion loan payment to Ukraine, which had been postponed following the blockade imposed on the separatist east of the country, the Ukrainian president said Monday.
“The IMF board took the decision to grant Ukraine one billion dollars,” President Petro Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page, seeing it as “another sign of the reforms under way in Ukraine.”
Cash-starved Ukraine has been desperately waiting for the next instalment from a $17.5 billion rescue programme that has been held up repeatedly since it was agreed in 2015 over delays by Kiev to carry out reforms.
Monday’s announcement brought total funds disbursed under the arrangement so far to about $8.4 billion.
The IMF had delayed its decision on the latest loan instalment, originally scheduled for March 20, saying it needed to reassess the “implications of recent developments for the programme”.
The postponement came after Kiev’s pro-Western leadership in March imposed a trade blockade on Russian-backed, rebel-held eastern regions. Kiev took the drastic step after rebels seized dozens of Ukrainian-owned businesses on their territory in response to a trade blockade by nationalist protesters.
