The National Bank of Ukraine has returned to the International Monetary Fund the first part of the loan received in late 2008 in the midst of the global financial crisis, director general of NBU's monetary policy department, Olena Scherbakova said.

"The National Bank has fulfilled its obligations to the IMF and has paid the first tranche," Scherbakova said. According to her, the amount of the funds returned is about 600 million USD. Commenting the present relationship with the Fund, the monetary policy department director said, "We are working on. The dialogue that we are holding with experts and the leadership of the IMF has never stopped."

November 10, 2008 Ukraine received the first tranche ($4.5 billion) of the IMF loan under the stand-by program for a total of $16.4 billion for 15 years at 4% per annum.

In 2012 Ukraine should return the IMF 2.433 billion SDR (or 3.719 billion dollars at the current exchange rate), including 199 million SDR as interest payments.

Ukrinform