Nov 6 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund approved a $16.5 billion loan programme for Ukraine late on Wednesday that includes monetary and exchange rate policy shifts to ease strains from the global financial crisis.
Following are key facts about why Ukraine is vulnerable to heightened risk aversion among international investors.
POLITICS
* Ukraine has been plagued by political turbulence since "Orange Revolution" protests in 2004 brought to power President Viktor Yushchenko and a team committed to moving closer to the West and joining NATO and the European Union.
Rows pitting Yushchenko against his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko, who twice served as his prime minister, undermined the "orange" camp and brought down governments.
Although the president dissolved parliament last month and called a December parliamentary election, he has since suspended that decree and a vote this year now seems unlikely.
* Upheaval -- and trouble forming a stable ruling coalition -- reflect Ukraine's longstanding division into the nationalist west and centre, which looks to the EU and United States, and the Russian-speaking east and south, friendlier towards Moscow.
* Relations with Russia, bumpy throughout the post-Soviet period, have sunk to unprecedented lows over Yushchenko's denunciation of Moscow's military intervention in Georgia. Ukraine depends heavily on Moscow for energy supplies.
CURRENCY POLICY
* The hryvnia currency hit an all-time low of 7.2 on Oct. 29, weakened by growing global risk aversion and regional tensions after Russia's conflict with Georgia.
* Authorities have said they will formulate a new mechanism which would unify the market, cash and official rates.
* In mid-2008, the hryvnia had strengthened as far as 4.5/$, after the central bank abandoned a policy of keeping it in a corridor of 5.00-5.06 per dollar within a 4.95-5.25 band.
FINANCES
* Foreign exchange reserves fell to $33 billion at the end of October from $37.5 billion end-September, when they covered 3.7 months of imports.
* The current account deficit more than quadrupled in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year to $8.4 billion, or 5.8 percent of GDP.
* Analysts based outside Ukraine forecast its current account deficit at $21-25 billion, or 10-12 percent of gross domestic product, by year-end; Ukraine-based analysts give lower forecasts of about 6 percent of GDP.
* Prices for Ukraine's steel exports are dropping, while Russia's Gazprom has suggested next year's price for gas imports could soar to $400 per 1,000 cubic metres from $179.50 now.
CURRENCY RISKS
* The central bank risks encouraging imports and further widening the trade gap if it supports the hryvnia. However, letting it float would remove an important anchor for domestic and foreign businesses in Ukraine's export-driven economy. * Many people hold debt in foreign currency and would have to pay more to service it if the hryvnia weakened.
* Consumers are extremely sensitive to currency movements -- they lost savings when the Soviet Union collapsed and again through hyper inflation and a currency crisis in the 1990s that more than halved the hryvnia's value to about 4/$ and beyond.
* Ukraine was forced to restructure its debts in 2000 and made the final payments on that restructuring just last year.
FOREIGN DEBT
Ukraine's foreign debt totalled just over $100 billion as of July 1, of which about $15 billion was government debt.
* Analysts estimate Ukraine's 2009 external financing requirement to be $55-66 billion, of which $32-40 billion is in the private sector. Foreign banks own 40-42 percent of total banking assets and 25 percent of short-term banking debt is owed to parent banks. (Compiled by Sabina Zawadzki)