Ukraine lowers expectations for next IMF tranche size

Ukraine is counting on a total of 1 billion U.S. dollars as a third tranche from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package compared with 1.7 billion dollars expected earlier, the country's Central Bank Governor Valeria Gontareva said here Thursday.

"The next tranche which we anticipate to receive would be worth 1 billion dollars," Gontareva told reporters during a press conference, without giving reasons for the possible reduction of the financial support.

Kiev anticipates that the IMF will decide on the disbursement of the next portion of aid during the next meeting of its executive board in July, she said.

The IMF approved a four-year 17.5-billion-dollar aid program for Ukraine in March 2015 to help the troubled country carry out reforms and boost its economic development.

Since then, Ukraine has received a total of 6.7 billion dollars from the global lender in two tranches of the aid package.

The allocation of the third tranche has been long delayed as Ukraine was slow in fulfilling the demands set by the IMF for obtaining the aid. Endi