An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said negotiations were well under way for Ukraine to secure its next tranche of IMF credits in September.

“We had an IMF mission here and $5 billion was set aside for Ukraine. We’ve already got $2.1 billion,” Oleh Ustenko told Ukraina 24 television. “Very active technical consultations are under way.”

Ustenko said draft legislation sought by the Fund in order to reactivate the standby arrangement first clinched last year, were now before parliament. At issue were reforms to the judicial system and measures to combat corruption.

“And I believe that we have a good chance to get the funds,” he said, saying these would likely be made available in September.

Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko also named September as the likely date for the next tranche.

“We are narrowing the range of unresolved matters,” Marchenko told the website lb.ua. “At issue here are concrete formulations of the obligations assumed by Ukraine. And the range is being narrowed to the maximum. In January, when the mission was here, there were many questions. There are fewer now.”

The Fund had disbursed $2.1 billion after approving the loan programme last June, but a Fund mission ended in February with the issue of new tranches unresolved.

The IMF had set out which issues had stood in the way of endorsing further payments in the 18-month standby arrangement involving about $5 billion – strengthening the governance of the central bank, improved legislation for bank supervision, policies to cut the medium-term fiscal deficit and legislation to restore and strengthen Ukraine’s efforts to tackle corruption.