UKRAINE STANDS TO RECEIVE MORE IMF LOANS.

A senior-level International Monetary Fund delegation has recommended to the IMF Board of Directors that it disburse to Ukraine the ninth tranche, worth $90 million, from a stand-by credit which was approved last year and which totals almost $1 billion. The delegation further assured Kiev that the IMF will open and begin disbursing an enlarged EFF credit, projected at $2.5 billion. That action only awaits approval by the Ukrainian parliament of both the 1997 budget and the government’s tax bill, which is designed to close the budget deficit and encourage private enterprise. Leftist deputies headed by the parliament’s Socialist chairman, Oleksandr Moroz, have resisted President Leonid Kuchma’s efforts to push through the tax bill, but Moroz has signaled in recent days that he is prepared to clear the bill’s passage in time to qualify Ukraine for the IMF credits. (Interfax-Ukraine, UNIAN, February 7-8)

Tajik Hostage Crisis Drags On.