IMF proposes Ukraine reduce budget deficit and inflation more quickly

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has proposed that Ukraine reduce the budget deficit faster than by 1% of GDP per year, and set a more ambitious goal of reducing inflation to less than 5-6% by the end of 2014, Head of the IMF Resident Representative Office in Ukraine Max Alier has said.

"The proposal to reduce the deficit by 1% [of GDP] is not an ambitious goal, as the public debt will continue to rise for several more years," he said in Kyiv on Wednesday at a meeting of the committee for economic reform chaired by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, during which Ukraine's reform strategy for 2010-2014 was to be approved.

He said that inflation in Ukraine had already fallen to a single digits, so by 2014 inflation could be reduced more significantly than to 5-6%, as stipulated in the draft strategy.