OREANDA-NEWS  The total public debt of Ukraine increased during 2018 by 2.6% to 2168.63 billion hryvnia (about $78 billion). This was reported on Friday by the Ministry of Finance.

It is noted that the direct domestic debt increased during 2018 by almost 1.5% to 1860.5 billion hryvnia ($66.92 billion), and the state-guaranteed debt increased slightly (less than 0.1%), to 308.13 billion hryvnia ($11.08 billion). The total amount of direct public debt in November was estimated at $ 65.01 billion, with

According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2019 Ukraine must pay 417.4 billion hryvnia (about $15 billion) of public debt. At the same time, the Agency plans to borrow 345.9 billion hryvnia this year (about $12.3 billion): in the domestic market - 202 billion hryvnia (58.4% of the total loan amount), external borrowing is planned in the amount of 143.9 billion hryvnia (41.6%).

The Board of Directors of The International Monetary Fund on December 18 approved a new funding program "stand-by" for Ukraine for $ 3.9 billion, designed for 14 months. The Fund did this only after the government agreed to raise gas prices for the population by 23.5%. Under the new program in December, Ukraine received a tranche of $ 1.4 billion.

Earlier, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said that the current amount of public debt threatens the budget with a catastrophe.

It was also reported that Kiev will send more than 145 billion hryvnias to service the state debt in 2019, which is 13.06% of all budget expenditures.

Earlier it was reported, that Kiev will pay the IMF more than 1.8 billion dollars in 2019, according to the publication "Ukrainian news".

According to the schedule, the Ukrainian authorities in the current year are obliged to pay 1 325,476 million special drawing rights — conventional units of account of the International Monetary Fund used in the provision of loans to the organization.