OREANDA-NEWS. April 11, 2013. Firstly over the recent years positive foreign trade balance has been fixed in Ukraine. This was announced by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov during a meeting with the mission of International Monetary Fund.

“The situation is under control in economics. We intend to achieve growth of GDP that is planned in the state budget. Revenues of the state budget for the first quarter exceeded the predicted showings. We fixed reducing of import, certain increase of export. As a result, we have fixed positive foreign trade balance for the first time. For the nonce it is not big, but it is an optimistic showing,” the head of Government told. So, overall he looks with optimism at continuation of cooperation with IMF and considers himself its consistent advocate. 

He underlined that even in this crisis time Ukraine managed to pay off timely all its foreign obligations. “From 2011 we have not received a cent of assistance from IMF. Over this time many countries have obtained multibillion loans from the IMF and have not solved their problems yet,” the Prime Minister emphasized.

I mean Ukraine is the country where creditors reliably receive their money at the time when they lose in many others. 

In his turn, chief of IMF mission Chris Jarvis noted that the mission had had fruitful negotiations with Government officials and with representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine. “We have had a lot of meetings and discussions both with the National Bank and with Government. For the recent time evaluation of general economic state of Ukraine has not undergone any changes. Several recent months have been rather favourable for Ukraine. In particular, tension with regards to currency exchange has slightly weakened. And we are pleased to stress that over the recent months economic situation has not worsened in Ukraine,” he said.

The IMF mission chief introduced to Mykola Azarov a new Resident Representative for Ukraine Jerome Vacher who from May 1 of the current year will replace Max Alier taking this position during the recent four years.

The regular IMF mission has been operating in Ukraine since March 27.