Daily Insight-Pension reform another step in IMF cooperation; Metinvest-Zaporizhstal deal; MoF\'s 16 primary dealers

Friday night, the Ukraine took a major step toward continuing cooperation with the IMF to receive the next tranche: the parliament finally adopted the pension reform to increase the sustainability of the Pension Fund, which currently suffers from huge deficits. For years, these deficits have been covered via transfers from the state budget. The new pension law brings forward two main changes: first, it raises the number of years a citizen has to work before becoming eligible for a state pension; and second, it puts a ceiling on the maximum pension benefit. For example, the pension age for women was raised to 60 from 55 years, and the ceiling was instituted for the maximum size of any state pension; it cannot exceed 10x the minimum subsistence levels, which makes the maximum possible size of a pension UAH7,640 (US$955) a month at present.