Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said at a news conference that the estimate for the next three months was conveyed by Ukraine’s finance ministry officials.
Financial support for the countries affected by the war in Ukraine is among the main topics for finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Washington.
“A big part of the economy is not functioning,” Georgieva told reporters on Wednesday. “Filling this financial gap is best done by relying on grant financing that is what we want to see.” David Malpass, president of the World Bank, said his organization was working on a $170bn package of support for developing countries worldwide over the coming 15 months.
The package would help tackle the economic cost of the war, the impact of the pandemic and the climate emergency, he added. “The war is putting stress on poor people around the world, adding to the debt overburden in many countries and through shortages of food, fuel and fertilizer creating a food insecurity crisis that will last at least for months and probably into next year,” Malpass said on Wednesday.
The commitments, made during the IMF and World Bank’s spring meetings, come after Ukraine’s finance minister Sergii Marchenko last week called for immediate financial support of tens of billions of dollars to cover the country’s fiscal deficit. Public spending exceeded revenues by about $2.7bn in March.
Ukraine expects the gap to widen to $5bn-$7bn a month in April and May. The spring meetings have exposed the difficulties of coordinating global economic policy at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions. At the meeting of senior finance officials from G20 economies on Wednesday, the British, US and Canadian delegations left in protest at Russia’s participation.
“Alongside our allies the US and Canada, representatives from the UK left the G20 meeting as Russian delegates spoke,” a spokesperson for the British delegation told Reuters. Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, was among those who walked out, the BoE confirmed. The IMF expects Ukraine’s economy to contract by 35 per cent this year, as the war chokes off output.
The invasion had placed the government under “great stress” as tax revenues dropped, Marchenko warned in an interview with the Financial Times.
Political | Process 
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