US and Ukraine sign $1 billion loan guarantee

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© RIA Novosti / Alexandr Demyanchuk

    
The US has signed a $1 billion loan guarantee deal with Ukraine, and is prepared to consider giving additional loan guarantees of up to $1 billion at the end of 2015 if Ukraine continues implementing economic reforms and cooperating with the Congress.

A US-born Finance Minister Natalie Yaresko signed the agreement on behalf of Ukraine, while the US government was represented by US Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt and USAID's Ukraine director Jed Barton.

"If Ukraine continues to make concrete steps to implement economic reforms and will also meet certain conditions of cooperation with the Congress, we will consider the possibility of providing additional loan guarantees of up to $1 billion at the end of 2015," Pyatt said in Kiev Monday after the signing ceremony.


In April, US Vice President Joe Biden promised Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to extend $1 billion in loan guarantees and provide additional non-lethal military assistance to Kiev.

In January, Yaresko and US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew signed a $2 billion loan guarantee deal in Kiev.

Ukraine's economy has been in a deep crisis since the Maidan protests at the end of 2013.

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