The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission has begun its work in Ukraine, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Yakiv Smoliy said on Thursday.

"The IMF mission arrived yesterday. Today, it began working with the Finance Ministry and the rest of the cabinet," Smoliy told reporters during a media briefing.

He voiced the hope that following the mission's visit to Kiev, the IMF will allocate the next tranche of aid for Ukraine from its 17.5-billion-U.S.-dollar bailout program.

Under the cooperation program launched in 2015, the East European country has received about 8.7 billion dollars from the global lender in four tranches, which helped its economy to avoid collapse amid the crisis.

The disbursement of the next tranche has been delayed as the IMF has urged Ukraine to complete all the reforms envisaged by the program, which is set to be ended in March 2019.

The IMF mission will be working in Ukraine till Sept. 19.