Ukraine December 24, 2022: The monitoring program is an important step that allows Ukraine to demonstrate its aspiration and readiness for reforms, regardless of the war. This will be also an opportunity to coordinate fiscal, monetary, and other policies, and facilitate interactions between the NBU as the institution with the mandate to ensure price and financial stability, and the Ministry of Finance, which has the mandate to seek necessary financing of the war.
Ukraine understands how important it is to use all the potential of the domestic debt market and achieve the important strategic task of financing for the FY2023 budget. We have to finance colossal budget needs of least $38 billion with external funds. We coordinated with the Ministry of Finance and agreed that the financing of next year’s deficit will not be done by the central bank, as this would create additional risks and challenges for macroeconomic stability. Even though we need a record amount of money, the Government of Ukraine, the Ministry of Finance and the NBU plan to finance the budget through cooperation with the donor coalition and the domestic debt market as well as with the assistance from the IMF.
We believe that the monitoring program will be one of the key elements that will allow Ukraine to attract financing from the coalition of international partners. They will look for a green light from the IMF. At the same time, we hope it will be the first step to an upper-credit tranche program that Ukraine is counting on next Spring.
We are grateful to the IMF team for their intense and professional work during these past two very challenging months. There was continuous communication, 24/7. The two parties held conferences night and day. We finalized our agreement during a missile attack. This added significance to each word that was spoken and each decision that was made.
Some years ago you started to lose your hearing and you have since become an advocate for the rights of people in Ukraine with impaired hearing. Have you been able to turn your loss of hearing into an advantage?
The loss of any ability cannot be considered an advantage, but at the same time it can open some new parts of one’s personality. In my case, I think it has allowed me to strengthen my focus and concentration. I do not hear external or ambient noise—nothing distracts me literally or figuratively.
Central banks have a notion of monetary silence. The bank and its entire staff are quiet with external parties the week before the meeting of the monetary policy decision-making committee to listen to each other attentively, to concentrate on the most important issues, and not to make mistakes in key decisions. So, in my case, this absence of noise allows me to get into that regime of monetary silence when it is necessary and focus on the most important issue.
