MOSCOW, June 17 (AFP) - A delegation of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) expected in Moscow next week will consider
providing a supplementary loan of up to ten billion dollars to help
Russia out of its financial mess, Prime Minister Sergei Kiryenko
said Wednesday.
The loan is intended to strengthen confidence in the central
bank, which has been obliged to provide large sums to prop up the
ruble, weakened by a massive withdrawal of foreign investment in
Russia, he told journalists.
The announcement came as President Boris Yeltsin recalled a
leading reform economist, Anatoly Chubais, to a key Kremlin post,
entrusting him with putting Russia's case to the IMF and other
bodies from which Moscow urgently needs financial support.
The IMF team is due in Moscow on Monday.
Deputy Finance Minister Oleg Viyugin, who is currently in charge
of relations with the IMF, said Tuesday the new loan requested might
be as much as ten billion dollars.
However, Russia had not yet made an official request, he said.
Russia already has 10.2 billion dollar, three-year IMF loan,
provided in 1996.
However its tranches have been released irregularly and do not
appear adequate to stem the crisis Russia has been undergoing in the
wake of the economic crises in Asian countries.
Chubais will hold the equivalent rank of deputy prime minister,
though he will not actually rejoin the government from which he was
fired in March, Interfax news agency reported.
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