Big debts and dwindling cash: Ukraine tests creditors' nerves | Reuters

Big debts and dwindling cash: Ukraine tests creditors' nerves | Reuters:

"It will be a jittery 18 months for Ukraine's international creditors, who are weighing up its $60 billion-plus debt repayment schedule against its fast-diminishing hard currency reserves.

Ukraine's presidential election in early 2015 is the focus for investors, who reckon the government will then be willing to sign up to a desperately needed loan from the International Monetary Fund. Before that, though, it would prefer to scrape by rather than accede to the IMF's politically difficult demands.

The country's debt problems shot into the spotlight this month when its state oil firm Naftogaz narrowly escaped default -- not through lack of cash but because of action by a U.S.-based creditor which successfully petitioned a UK court to seize a bond coupon payment in lieu of an old $22 million debt.

Ukraine paid the $22 million again to avoid default. But it could ill-afford the extra payment, given central bank reserves are barely above $20 billion -- less than enough for three months of imports."

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