Off the wire
• Trade negotiators to reach breakthroughs on key LDC issues in Nairobi  • Yearender: Trapped in debt, refugee crises in 2015, will Greece have another volatile year?  • Interview: EBRD secretary general looking forward to fruitful collaboration with China  • Jordan launches 1st wind power plant  • Roundup: Chinese scientist among Nature's ten people for 2015  • Roundup: Putin reaffirms openness to cooperation, firm diplomatic stances  • High-level advisory committee established for World Internet Conference  • Latvian steel company faces six-figure insolvency lawsuit  • Afghanistan's WTO membership approved after 11 years of talks  • Britain will not ban Muslim Brotherhood: Cameron  
You are here: 　 Home

Ukraine seeks debt-restructuring talks with Russia

Xinhua, December 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Ukrainian Finance Ministry said on Thursday it wanted to talk with Russia in a bid to search common ground over the restructuring of Kiev's 3-billion-U.S.-dollar debt, which matures on Sunday.

"Ukraine remains committed to negotiating in good faith a consensual restructuring of the December 2015 Eurobonds," said a statement posted on the ministry's website.

Ukraine is unable to repay the debt on its initial conditions because it would contradict the obligations to other international creditors and financing targets established in the cooperation program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the statement said.

Kiev's appeal for a debt-restructuring dialogue with Russia came one day after the IMF executive board qualified Ukraine's debt to Moscow as official.

Previously, Ukraine insisted that the debt was commercial and claimed that it has a right to impose a moratorium on its repayment.

Last month, Moscow offered Kiev a debt-restructuring plan, under which Ukraine could repay its arrears in three instalments of 1 billion dollars each within the next three years.

Ukraine got the loan in the form of Eurobonds from Russia in December 2013 to shore up its economy amid financial crisis. Endit