Ukraine receives a $1.5 bln loan from Canada

MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - Ukraine has received a loan of $1.5 billion from Canada, Ukrainian media reported, citing Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko's statement on social media on Wednesday.

"We received $1.5 billion from Canada today. Budget assistance has reached $5.1 billion since February 2022," Marchenko said.

Ukraine's Finance Ministry said that the received funds are part of the third additional agreement to the document signed in August 2022. The loan is for 10 years, the interest rate is 1.5% per annum, and the grace period is 4.5 years from the date of receipt of the funds.

As reported, Ukraine's federal budget on Wednesday received the first tranche of 4.5 billion euros from the European Union under the Ukraine Facility program. All previous external receipts had totaled just $1.2 billion since the beginning of the year.

The National Bank of Ukraine expects that the country could receive external financing of $10 billion or even more from mid-March to the end of April amid an overall need of over $37 billion for the year.

The EU Council and the European Parliament in early February said that they had agreed on a new mechanism to support Ukraine totaling 50 billion euros for 2024-2027. This concerns "a new, single special instrument to support Ukraine's recovery, reconstruction, and modernization, including key reforms necessary on its EU accession track," the EU Council said in a communique. The total budget will be 33 billion euros in the form of loans and 17 billion euros in the form of grants.

The European Parliament approved the Ukraine Facility regulation at the end of February. Ukraine and the EU on March 12 signed a loan agreement and a memorandum on transition financing for Ukraine within the Ukraine Facility for 2024-2027.