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Strategies & Market Trends : Investment in Russia and Eastern Europe -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tony van Werkhooven who wrote (546)	8/27/1998 10:48:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 1301

No financial help for Russia without reforms-Kohl Thursday August 27, 5:45 am Eastern Time BERLIN, Aug 27 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said on Thursday that Russia could not expect any financial help, either from Germany or the international community, if it did not pass crucial reforms. Kohl, who said he was concerned about the crisis in Russia, also told reporters he planned to speak to U.S. President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac about the situation. Kohl said: ''Without the reforms it will not be possible to mobilise money either from international financial organisations or from Germany.'' He said he wanted to talk to fellow Western government leaders to sound out what could be done to help push through Russia's reforms. ''If they don't follow through (on reforms) the situation will look bad,'' Kohl said. The chancellor was speaking after the Russian central bank suspended trading on Moscow's currency exchange, fearing that the rouble could extend Wednesday's dramatic 40 percent plunge against the German mark. Panic spread across the country as people tried to exchange their rapidly depreciating roubles for scarce dollars. Acting Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was trying to put together a government, while President Boris Yeltsin, whose authority is in question, was holed up at a residence outside Moscow. Copyright c 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

To: Tony van Werkhooven who wrote (546)	8/27/1998 10:50:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 1301

Russia PM, parliament consider price controls Thursday August 27, 5:49 am Eastern Time MOSCOW, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia's acting Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and parliament are mulling extreme measures to halt the rouble's slide, including price controls and a halt to convertibility, a key Chernomyrdin ally said on Thursday. Alexander Shokhin, head of Chernomydin's parliamentary party, said a document being drawn up by the acting government and parliament's lower house, would contain ideas that once might have seemed ''exotic,'' but were no longer so after the worsening of Russia's financial situation. ''The ideas contained in the economic project...which seem at first glance exotic, they are no longer so, because the government of (former Prime Minister Sergei) Kiriyenko and the central bank provoked these decisions,'' he said. ''The discussion includes specific administrative controls to the currency situation,'' he said. ''There will be demand for control on the currency market: administrative control, and perhaps even a temporary closure of the market, with a canceling of internal convertability of the rouble.'' Other measures being mulled included setting prices to fight inflation or selling off all the central bank's and the government's hard currency income to support the rouble. But he said the government would try to strike a balance between urgently needed controls and the demands of a free market. ''It is very important now not to go back to 1991, not to return to administrative-command methods,'' he said. The main task was to find solutions that ''can save those benefits of the market economy which can still be saved, and, on the other hand, protect the population, banking system and the economy from the negative consequences of declaring the country bankrupt.'' Copyright c 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

To: Tony van Werkhooven who wrote (546)	8/27/1998 11:17:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1301

Whatever happened to the theory that Russia was too big and important (i.e., nukes) to fail? Fascinating. The hedge funds (now failing) seemed to bank on this theory. Wouldn't this be the ideal time for Clinton/Kohl to intervene (after the Duma says uncle) and for Greenspan to lower interest rates (real IRs are way too high on historical basis). Clinton and Greenspan have been conspicuously absent in the face of the Russian collapse. I guess we don't care anymore and are willing to play the dangerous game of chicken