The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expects that the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would approve the new program for Ukraine in the first quarter of 2020, NBU Governor Yakiv Smolii has said.

"We do not expect that the agreement will be signed this year. This is how the IMF board meeting schedule is built. According to the schedule, the meeting may take place in the first quarter of next year," Smolii said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

He also said that many IMF conditions that precede the Staff Level Agreement were met by Ukraine.

"Minor technical issues remained. I would outline a few of them: the adoption of the law on the impossibility of banks returning to the market if they are at the liquidation stage with the Deposit Guarantee Fund... Second, it is the creation of unified legal entities for the tax and customs services. These bills were submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers to the Verkhovna Rada. And also the issues that were fruitfully discussed: the bill on the turnover of farmland," the governor of the central bank said.