WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - The International Monetary Fund has agreed to modify Ukraine's performance criterion on Net International Reserves (NIR) to lower the NIR floor as of the end of December by about $2 billion to help the country honor its external financial obligations, Max Alier, the IMF resident representative for Ukraine, said in a statement.

"On December 30, 2009, the IMF Executive Board agreed to the government's request to modify the performance criterion on Net International Reserves (NIR), as specified in the current Stand-By Arrangement, to lower the end-December NIR floor by about $2 billion," Alier said in his statement.