KIEV -- The IMF has approved $350 million in credits for Ukraine, the third part of a loan to help the former Soviet republic stabilize its economy, Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk said.


Marchuk told Interfax on his return Saturday from the United States that the IMF Board of Directors approved allocation of the standby credit at a meeting he attended Friday in Washington.


The IMF had earlier this year approved credits worth about $1.5 billion. The funds, approved after an examination of Ukraine's market reform program, seek to help the country put its economy on a sound footing and pay for vital imports.


Interfax quoted IMF chief executive Michel Camdessus as saying that Marchuk had provided him with assurances that the program first drawn up last October would not be altered.


The government is to present to parliament a new economic program that Marchuk and President Leonid Kuchma have said introduces a necessary "correction" in proceeding with reforms.


Both men have said Ukraine must maintain considerable state control over economic change -- including the maintenance of large government shares in companies to be privatized.


Interfax quoted a member of Ukraine's delegation as saying the IMF leadership had raised questions about Ukraine's commitment to market reforms in view of the revised program.


Marchuk told reporters Ukrainian officials and the IMF coincided in how they viewed future economic developments but said his policies "are not dictated by international financial organizations but based on common sense."