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Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance is concerned about the unwillingness of the Creditors Committee representing holders of the country’s external debt to participate in the negotiations on restructuring Ukraine’s sovereign debt, the ministry has said on its Web site.
The ministry said that immediately after a presentation its debt transaction objectives on March 13, it urged the bondholders to form a Committee of Creditors, but the committee refused to disclose its composition, thus diverging from a standard procedure and running contrary to the principles of the IIF (Institute of International Finance).
It is also reported that last week the Minister of Finance of Ukraine Natalia Jaresko proposed direct negotiations with one of the known members of the committee, but was informed that the creditor was not available to talk with her.
At the same time the Finance Ministry stated that the debt restructuring aims to achieve three goals (liquidity, stability and solvency), but the committee has been focusing in its public statements solely on the liquidity aspect, refusing to communicate directly, but only through the media.
The Finance Ministry intends to continue negotiations with the holders of Ukraine’s debt while acting in accordance with the principles of transparency, accountability and integrity, the ministry said on its Web site.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine started negotiations on restructuring public debt worth of $23 billion on March 13 - immediately after the approval of a new lending program of the International Monetary Fund in amount of $17.5 billion.
One of the participants in the restructuring talks, a state-owned Ukreximbank, has released data according to which the Ukrainian side intends to save up to $5.2 billion under debt securities in 2015 as the result of the negotiations.
The list of securities subject to restructuring also includes issues of government bonds worth $500 million, $644.220 million and $3 billion (the latter purchased by the Russian Federation), municipal bonds issued by Kyiv city worth $250 million, bonds issued by Ukreximbank worth $750 million, and loans taken by other government agencies worth a total amount of $225.54 million.
The negotiations with creditors are to be completed in May 2015, before the completion of the mission of the International Monetary Fund for the first review of the program.
According to Jaresko, the creditors are delaying the negotiation process significantly.