Serhiy MOSKVYN, Chairman, Verkhovna Rada Business Legislation Subcommittee:
Any credit is good so long as it can be put to effective use and pays off. Our relationships with the International Monetary Fund are constructed at the highest level. Naturally, terms and conditions are stipulated, allowing the creditor to make sure his money will be repaid on time. As for the IMF, its conditions are not always sufficiently justified [from the other party’s point of view], but this is surely the creditor’s privilege. Ukraine’s subsequent financial policy should be oriented more toward business entities; the latter, rather than the state, ought to grant such loans. Ukraine has been using IMF credits primarily to support its national currency, while this money should be used to advance the economy and business via such business entities.
Serhiy CHUKMASOV, Deputy Chairman, Committee for Economic Policy and Administration of the Nation’s Economy:
Ukraine could do without IMF credits. How? We need to arrest about twenty people and will come up with the money we need. In fact, I know who should be sent to prison. In that case we could get more money than we do from the IMF. Everybody knows this, yet no one seems prepared to act. An alternative to Ukraine’s cooperation with IMF? I am reminded of an old joke. There is a “businessman” making money breeding chickens. And then his farm is caught in a hurricane followed by a flood, and all his chickens were killed. He then asked himself what he could do? Is there an alternative to developing business in Ukraine? And someone tells him, yes, of course, you have an alternative, start breeding ducks, they can swim. Well, maybe we should start breeding ducks to keep afloat somehow.
Volodymyr PYLYPCHUK, Ph.D., Academician, Academy of Economic Sciences and Academy of Economic Cybernetics of Ukraine:
IMF or no, this will not affect the existence of the Ukrainian state. What really matters is credit relationships, namely the terms and conditions on which Ukraine can get loans. Getting IMF credits at LIBOR+1% rate is good for Ukraine. To get out of the crisis, Ukraine needs $5 billion in the first year, $4 billion the next, $3 billion the third, $2 billion the fourth, and $1 billion the fifth year. These credits should mature in 35 years, with principal and interest payments deferred for ten years. This is the critical mass that would allow us to cure the economy of its ills, and the total amount is $21 billion. At the same time, we have to implement the whole economic reform package. If we do, we will be in a position to take the IMF credits, but otherwise we will leave the coming generations with yet another burden to shoulder.
Viktor PYNZENYK, People’s Deputy, leader of the Reforms & Order Party:
Ukraine would have found itself in a very difficult situation without cooperating with the IMF. I do not mean that we would all die, just that we would have to resort to extremely harsh measures, among them stopping factories and cutting off electricity supplies in the municipal sector. Why? Because we are getting IMF credits not to solve our budget deficit problems (Ukraine must solve them itself), but to secure imports to cover its payments deficit. In Ukraine, imports surpass exports, so bridging this gap through internal borrowing is impossible; this can be done only having hard currency handy. Here we have an alternative: accept IMF credits to sell dollars to supply import needs or decline these credits hoping to survive by taking extremely harsh measures. It is also true, however, that Ukraine used yet another debt-financing option: holding back payments for energy supplies from Russia, but this is dangerous. Nobody will let you live on credit forever.
