A New Sovereign Debt Problem: IMF Stops Payments To Ukraine

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The IMF has grown tired of increasing government spending in Ukraine. The agency had agreed to loan the nation $16.8 billion to offset its large national deficits. It is now withholding the latest $3.5 billion installment. The nation desperately needs the capital. According to The New York Times, “The monetary fund has forecast that Ukraine’s economy will contract 15 percent this year, with inflation running above 16 percent.”

Ukraine does not have access to other capital. The global debt markets will not fund a sovereign government that cannot get money from the IMF and the Ukraine economy is too weak for the country to raise taxes on individuals or businesses.

The events that have caused the IMF to withdraw its support have many of the earmarks of a country about to defer or default on payments for its sovereign debt.

Early this year, a number of global debt experts said that they expected a Ukraine default despite IMF aid. Ratings agencies downgraded Ukraine paper and several capital markets experts said that the nation did not have the resources to cover it bond obligations.

It is too early to say if the IMF loan is absolutely critical to Ukraine fulfilling its sovereign debt obligations. It is too early to say whether the IMF will “blink” and clear the next part of its loan to the country to prevent the global capital markets disaster that could result from a default.

It is clear that the number of nations teetering on the brink of failing to make payments on their debt is rising.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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