Ukraine plans to issue a $1.3 billion Eurobond in 2010 -- its first since the global economic crisis -- to plug an anticipated budget deficit and repay accumulated debt, government figures showed on Monday.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's government also foresaw drawing on $2 billion of credit from an International Monetary Fund programme and $500 million from the World Bank during the year, the figures showed.

Separately, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it was ready to give the ex-Soviet republic more than 1 billion euro in loans and investments this year, almost the same volume as in 2009.

EBRD President Thomas Mirow told a news conference the terms for issuing would depend on how quickly Ukrainian authorities agreed to conditions.

Ukraine's new leadership is expecting word soon on a sought-for $12 billion credit package over 2-1/2 years from the IMF to turn round a hard-pressed economy whose main export markets were savaged by the financial downturn.

Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Tigipko, Ukraine's point man on negotiations with the IMF, was quoted by the government press service on Monday as saying in Washington that Kiev might receive $19 billion to $20 billion from the fund.

Before leaving for Washington on April 20, he said Ukraine was seeking $12 billion in credit and the government press service gave no explanation for the difference between the two figures.

To meet IMF demands, it has put together a draft budget for 2010, which it hopes will be approved by parliament this week.

The government figures, in a document that outlined expected borrowing under the 2010 budget, gave no yield for the planned Eurobond nor say which banks had been chosen to lead the issue.

The last time the Ukrainian Finance Ministry went on to the bond market was in 2007, when it issued five-year bonds for $500 million with a 6.385 percent coupon.

In 2008 after a road show with an indicative volume of several hundred million dollars the government backed off going to the market when it saw how high the price would be.

A week ago however the state-run Ukreximbank issued a five-year Eurobond for $500 million with a coupon of 8.375 percent.

The government figures showed Ukraine was faced with paying out 27.227 billion hryvnia ($3.403 billion) to domestic creditors this year -- the result of accumulated short-term and medium-term securities now maturing.

They showed Ukraine's foreign debt coming due this year to be 10.772 billion hryvnia ($1.346 billion).

The Ukrainian government has made a commitment to the IMF to try to hold its budget deficit to 6 per cent of gross domestic product.

The figures showed that the government aimed to hold the hryvnia at 8/$ during the year. It intended to issue t-bills over the year totalling 66.190 billion hryvnia ($8.274 billion), 47.853 billion hryvnia of which would go to covering the deficit.



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