PRISTINA: Kosovo has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for talks on a new precautionary programme, but is unlikely to need to draw any funds, the Fund’s Kosovo mission chief said yesterday.
A previous 30-month stand-by deal — Kosovo’s first since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 — came to an end last month. It was worth ¤107m ($146m).
“We take the government request very seriously, we will give it the utmost consideration and we are thinking of a formal programme negotiating mission in March,” Jacques Alain Miniane, the newly appointed IMF chief mission for Kosovo, told a news conference.
“The government has signalled the intention for the programme to be precautionary. At this stage there are no financing needs, no budgetary or external needs that the government or the state cannot fund on its own,” he said.
Miniane did not say how much the new deal could be worth but a Kosovo official said it may be around ¤100m.
Six years after gaining independence, the land-locked country of 1.7 million people remains one of the poorest in Europe.
Reuters
