Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on Wednesday that his country and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to hammer out a new credit program in the next two weeks.

Azarov said this was decided after "successful" talks between President Viktor Yanukovych and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Washington.

"After successful negotiations ... a two week time-scale was set out for preparing a memorandum on a new program with the IMF," Azarov told a cabinet meeting.

The IMF in 2008 approved a two-year bailout program for Ukraine. So far, the Eastern European country has received 11 billion U.S. dollars out of a 16.4-billion-dollar loan from the IMF.

The IMF has suspended the rest of the money since last November because of breached promises of fiscal restraint by the previous leadership of Viktor Yushchenko.

Azarov said the new two-year credit program will replace the current one.

Ukraine is anxious for fresh credit from the Fund to help it recover from the global financial crisis that has hit its main exports of metals and chemicals and hurt investor confidence.

Strauss-Kahn said on Monday after talks with Yanukovych that it was important for the Ukrainian government to try to pass "a well- grounded 2010 budget to strengthen fiscal sustainability and support the recovery."

Under pressure from the IMF, the Azarov government has set an ambitious budget deficit goal of 6 percent of gross domestic product.

Ukraine's first deputy prime minister Andriy Klyuev said on Wednesday that the draft budget was "practically ready" to go to parliament.

"The only question is the price of gas. I think that by the end of this week or by the beginning of next we will resolve this problem," Klyuev told reporters.

He believed the draft budget would be adopted by parliament by May 1.