The Russian Govt certainly has a lot of experience with offshore funds, which amount to twice the officials reserves:
IT IS all a little unusual, even by Russian standards. According
to the head of the country's central bank, Viktor Gerashchenko,
billions of dollars of its foreign-exchange reserves have, over a
five-year period, been secretly administered by an obscure
offshore company. The company's existence was first revealed
on February 1st by the country's chief prosecutor, Yuri
Skuratov, who had been investigating the high-spending central
bank since last August's financial crash. He resigned,
ostensibly for health reasons, the next day. On February 5th Mr
Gerashchenko confirmed that the Jersey-based Financial
Management Company (FIMACO) had been used, partly “to
avoid complications” in negotiations with Russia's creditors,
since “there was a probability that the country's foreign
property could be seized.”
There has been no explanation of how much FIMACO (share capital: $1,000) earned for managing
Russia's reserves, nor where the money went. Nor is it clear why the money managed by
FIMACO—as much as $50 billion, says Mr Skuratov—so far exceeded the country's disclosed
reserves, in a period when they peaked at $24 billion. A former finance minister, Boris Fedorov,
says he queried the arrangements in 1993, but was told to mind his own business. “They were
simply allowing friends to earn handsome profits”, he suggests. |
