KYIV, April 29 – Italian Minister of Economy and Finance Daniele Franco confirmed plans to provide Ukraine with a loan of EUR 200 million, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said in an interview with Italian Corriere della sera following the recent talks in Washington at the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

We are negotiating to receive funds on concessional terms: at 1% per annum, with a maturity of 15 years. In my opinion, other countries can also offer us loans on such concessional terms. Such financing would certainly help us," Marchenko said.

He also thanked Italy, which was the first of all countries to provide Ukraine with EUR 110 million on grant terms at the very beginning of the war unleashed by Russia.

The Ukrainian Finance Minister said that the preparation of an agreement on the next EUR 150 million loan from Germany, which will help support Ukraine's macro-financial stability, has also recently begun.

According to him, only last week Germany provided a EUR 150 million loan to support small and medium-sized businesses, an agreement on which was reached back in March 2020.

Minister Christian Lindner also noted that they are considering providing us with military support in the amount of EUR 1 billion, but we expected from Germany no less financial support than that provided to us by the UK, Canada or the United States," Marchenko said. (om/ez)