“It was a great pleasure to welcome President Yanukovych and his delegation to the IMF. This was my first meeting with the President. We had the opportunity to discuss recent economic developments in Ukraine and the government’s interest in resuming a program relationship with the Fund.

“I expressed our support for the President’s efforts to reinvigorate the economy following the deep recession in 2009. In this connection, I emphasized the importance of passing a well-grounded 2010 budget to strengthen fiscal sustainability and support the recovery. We agreed to continue staff-level discussions, including during the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank on April 24-25.”