Experts from a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to Kyiv on Monday, the IMF Resident Representative Office in Ukraine has reported.

Deputy Director of the IMF's European Department Poul Thomsen and IMF Mission Chief for Ukraine Thanos Arvanitis approved during their recent visit to Kyiv that the IMF mission would start working in Ukraine on June 21 to work out the draft of the new program of collaboration between Ukraine and the IMF.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko noted earlier that the planning of Ukraine's state budget deficit will be a major subject of negotiations between the parties.

The IMF in autumn 2008 made a decision to disburse about 18 billion USD under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA). Since that time, Ukraine has already obtained three tranches worth almost 11 billion USD. The first 5 billion USD tranche was given to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in November 2008.

The IMF's second tranche - about 3 billion USD- was extended in May 2009, with those funds being split between the NBU and the government of ex- Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko. The third tranche (about 4 billion USD) was supplied in August 2009 and was at the disposal of the Tymoshenko government alone.

The allocation of the fourth tranche, worth about 3.9 billion USD, was scheduled for November 2009 following the third review of the IMF's collaboration program with Ukraine. The IMF mission finishes its work in Kyiv late in October 2009, but did not issue a positive statement on the completion of the review.