Ukraine To Spend Almost $15Bln On Repaying State Debt In 2019 - Finance Ministry

KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2018) Ukraine will spend almost $15 billion on servicing and paying off government debt in 2019, the country's finance minister Oksana Markarova said on Friday.

In late August, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that Kiev should repay $33 billion of public debt in the next five years. According to Groysman, debt servicing costs Ukraine 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) annually.

"In 2019, almost 418 billion hryvnias [about $15 billion] will be directed for servicing and returning both external and internal debts," Markarova told a press briefing.

On Friday, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the 2019 state budget with a deficit of 2.3 percent of GDP, inflation at 7.4 percent and economic growth at 3 percent. The document has to be signed by President Petro Poroshenko. The adoption of a balanced budget for 2019 is one of the conditions for continuing cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).