Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

It’s “theoretically possible” that Ukraine won’t make a $120 million coupon payment due next month, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said.

The government has the right to impose a moratorium on debt payments, she told reporters in Kiev Thursday in response to a question about a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. note that predicted a July default. The government is unlikely to resolve disagreements with creditors in the coming weeks and will default on about $19 billion of debt when it misses the July 24 payment, Goldman analyst Andrew Matheny wrote on Wednesday.

Ukraine passed a law last month allowing it to stop servicing its debt. It will impose a payment freeze in a few weeks if its restructuring proposal isn’t accepted, a person familiar with the government’s position said last Friday. A creditor committee led by Franklin Templeton needs to see the International Monetary Fund’s latest economic projections for Ukraine before the plan can be assessed, the group said Monday.

Jaresko won’t attend meetings with creditors and the IMF in Washington next week, because they are technical discussions regarding the the fund’s latest economic forecasts for the east European nation, she said.