David Lipton talks a lot – good sign, we believe

UKRAINE - In Brief 16 Sep 2017 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Last week the IMF's First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton visited Kyiv. He talks a lot publicly and even gives an extensive interview to local media (here is the text in English). The IMF officials never have been so talkative on my memory. He repeats key messages about pension reform, privatization and anticorruption court. He mentions that there should be an automatic formula applied to gas prices and recognizes that land reform requires more time. He claims publicly about risks of reforms’ reverse. In fact not much new information in this verbal intervention except… the very intervention. I see that the IMF tries to influence public opinion in Ukraine, which is very unusual. It was only once back in April 2017 when Ron van Roden, the Head of the IMF Mission to Ukraine published an article in local media explaining why pension reform is badly needed. This extensive verbal intervention is a good sign, I believe. It will spur MPs and the Cabinet with needed moves. The way of presenting information is quite friendly, but demanding. I would say that Lipton arrived to make a push for completion of required benchmarks. And the very readiness to discuss situation publicly in details means the Fund is positive about further cooperation. If negotiations stall the IMF officials would be very stingy on comments.