The new government of Ukraine has confirmed the main criteria of the new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved in December 2019 in the Staff Level Agreement, and expects that it will be launched before May 2020, Finance Minister Ihor Umansky has said.

"The government is interested in the new program. We suggest that the dynamics [preparation of the program] will not change with the reset of the new government. Thus, we will come to the final approval of both the text and the program," the minister said at a meeting with reporters.

Umansky reported that on March 10, he participated in a conference call of Head of Government Denys Shmyhal and Head of IMF Mission in Ukraine Ron van Rooden, where they discussed issues that need to be finalized for the program to be submitted to the session of the IMF Executive Board.

According to the minister, two main preliminary measures are the adoption of the law on the land market and amendments to the law on banks, "which makes it impossible to harm public finances from the former owners of the banks that were withdrawn by the National Bank [from the market]". Umansky expects that the law on the land market can be adopted as early as next week, and then the final draft of the document on banks will be ready. The minister said that he considers manipulative the opinion that the bill on banks is directed against one person [ex-owner of PrivatBank Ihor Kolomoisky], since this is a common norm for more than a hundred banks that have already been withdrawn from the market and possible new cases in the future.

The Head of the Finance Ministry said that now, this bill is being finalized by a group of lawyers under the leadership of Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska.