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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lee Lichterman III who wrote (12441)	4/29/1999 6:33:00 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 99985

The financial networks have missed this AP story on Tuesday: Russia Is Overdue on Debt Payments By ANGELA CHARLTON Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - Russia is overdue on $2 billion in foreign debt payments and the money crunch will only worsen unless the debts are rescheduled, the nation's top foreign debt agent said Tuesday. Russia is eager to reschedule its roughly $150 billion in foreign debt, most of which is leftover from the Soviet era. About $17.5 billion comes due this year, and Russia has already said it cannot afford to pay all of it. Russia has missed $2 billion in payments to the London Club of commercial lenders and Paris Club of creditor nations, said Andrei Kostin, chairman of Vnesheconombank, the bank in charge of Russia's foreign debt, the Interfax news agency reported. The Paris Club and the London Club are two of Russia's biggest creditor groups. Kostin warned that Russia's annual foreign debt payments, which averaged $6 billion in 1992-98, are soaring to $15 billion to $17 billion in the coming years, and Russia's failing economy cannot handle this sum. He called for intensified efforts to reschedule the debt, Interfax said. Also Tuesday, the Moscow city government announced it may default on foreign debt payments coming due in May and June, according to city official Iosif Ordzhonokidze. He insisted, however, that the city has kept current on all payments so far, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Moscow is Russia's financial capital and benefited most from the market boom before it fizzled last August. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said he hoped to work out a loan plan with the International Monetary Fund during talks in Washington this week, ITAR-Tass reported. IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus, who visited Moscow last month, agreed in principle that the fund would resume its lending to Russia, but the size of the loan has yet to be negotiated. The IMF and other lenders froze aid to Russia after its economy imploded last August.