Ukraine has unlocked a $3.39 billion World Bank package by completing a slate of reforms. The Finance Ministry and the World Bank signed the first Development Policy Operation for jobs and private-sector growth at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, after Kyiv passed 13 laws and 7 bylaws required by the program, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
The money will go to macro-financial stability and priority budget spending in a country that funnels all its own tax revenue into defense and runs much of the rest of the budget on foreign financing.
The package is also a reform receipt: the World Bank releases the cash only after Ukraine implements the attached changes, the same condition that drives its bid for EU membership.
Allies backstop loan
The financing splits into two. A $1.04 billion development-policy loan is backed by a $500 million UK guarantee and $540 million in credit support from Japan, while a $2.35 billion grant comes from the F.O.R.T.I.S. Ukraine fund, short for Facilitation of Resources to Invest in Strengthening Ukraine.
It is the first of two planned operations in the series, and Svyrydenko thanked World Bank President Ajay Banga, Japan, and the UK for the backing.
Reforms cleared conditions
Ukraine met the terms with 13 laws and 7 bylaws spanning public procurement, factoring, integration of the energy market with the EU, agriculture, veteran entrepreneurship, housing, preschool and vocational education, and the restoration of greenhouse gas monitoring.
The procurement law alone binds about a quarter of the wartime economy to EU rules and cleared an early hurdle in accession talks.
Kyiv eyes postwar economy
Svyrydenko said she and Banga discussed the next stage, an "Economy of the Future" strategy aimed at defining what Ukraine's economy will become after the war.
She placed affordable mortgages at the center of efforts to bring displaced Ukrainians home, and said privatization should proceed in stages and transparently, drawing in strategic investors and raising the value of state assets rather than selling them in haste.
Foreign financing covers nearly half the budget as Ukraine's projected 2026-2027 deficit reaches about $91 billion.
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