The Ukrainian government does not intend to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to merge the third and fourth tranches of the EFF program in spite of a considerable backlog from the original schedule of their issue, First Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv has said.

"We've performed work in accordance with the regulations, which the Ukrainian government won't change. We agreed it is not acceptable to make changes: we'll have what we have," he told journalists in Kyiv.

As reported, the four-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program, which opened in March 2015 and totaled SDR 12.348 billion (around $17 billion according to the current exchange rate), with the first tranche of $5 billion, initially involved quarterly reviews of the program, disbursing three SDR 1.18 billion (around $1.63 billion) tranches in 2015, and reducing quarterly tranches in 2016-2018 to SDR 0.44 billion ($0.61 billion).