{{Ukraine’s interim government says it will raise gas prices for domestic consumers by 50% in an effort to secure an International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid package.}}<\/p>\n
An official at Ukraine’s Naftogaz state energy company said the price rise would take effect on 1 May, and further rises would be scheduled until 2018.<\/p>\n
Ukrainians are accustomed to buying gas at heavily subsidised rates.<\/p>\n
But the IMF has made subsidy reform a condition of its deal.<\/p>\n
Ukraine currently buys more than half of its natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom, and then sells it on to consumers at below market prices.<\/p>\n
Yury Kolbushkin, budget and planning director at Naftogaz, told reporters that gas prices for district heating companies would also rise by 40% from 1 July.<\/p>\n
IMF negotiators are still in Kiev to negotiate a package of measures worth billions of dollars to help Ukraine’s interim government plug its budget deficit and meet foreign loan repayments.<\/p>\n
{{Deal expected}}<\/p>\n
The IMF is also asking Ukraine to crack down on corruption and end central bank support for the Ukrainian currency.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s finance minister Olexander Shlapak said the country was seeking $15-20bn from the IMF.<\/p>\n
The Financial Times has reported that a rescue package worth about $15bn is close to being agreed, and could be announced as early as Thursday.<\/p>\n
An agreement with the IMF is necessary to unlock further financial support from the EU and US.<\/p>\n
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{{Ukraine’s interim government says it will raise gas prices for domestic consumers by 50% in an effort to secure an International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid package.}} An official at Ukraine’s Naftogaz state energy company said the price rise would take effect on 1 May, and further rises would be scheduled until 2018. Ukrainians are accustomed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051218,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13429.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13429"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}