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Ukraine says to start debt-restructuring talks on Friday

Xinhua, March 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko said here Thursday that Ukraine will start debt-restructuring talks with its creditors on Friday.

"Tomorrow we will start consultations with our lenders on the restructuring of the state debt," Jaresko said, while speaking at the parliament.

If negotiations are successful, the public finances debt burden will ease, Jaresko said, without giving details on the targeted sum of debt restructuring.

According to various estimates, during the negotiations with its lenders, Kiev would seek restructuring from 15 billion U.S. dollars to 22 billion dollars of its state debt.

Earlier this month, Ukraine's central bank said the country's public debt reached 1.1 trillion hryvnyas (about 51 billion dollars) or 71.5 percent of the gross domestic product at the end of 2014.

The successful restructuring of the state debt is one of the key conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine to get the second tranche of a new aid program involving 17.5 billion dollars.

Under the program, approved on Wednesday, the IMF decided to allocate 5 billion dollars as a first disbursement for general budget support to the East European country. Endi