In a message dated 99-04-03 10:25:00 EST, you write: << In premier Yeltsin's case, this included placing 5,590 Metric Tonnes of gold on the black market last Summer, as well as auctioning tens of billions of pristine Rouble banknotes to western banks and other interested buyers. The banknotes were offered at a 25% discount - in exchange for US Dollar currency. Sale proceeds were scheduled for deposit at a New York branch of Citibank, and administered by Sergey Kostantinovich Dubinin, Chairman of the Russian Central Bank. >> Russia Gold Reserves Fall By JUDITH INGRAM .c The Associated Press MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves have dropped to a three-year low, the Central Bank announced today. By the end of last week, reserves were just $10.9 billion by the end of last week, down from $11.2 billion the previous week. The drop was caused by the government selling dollars to support the ruble and using reserves to pay off some of its international loans, analysts said. The bank spent $2.1 billion of its foreign-exchange reserves in the first quarter of the year to help the government pay its debts, Central Bank chairman Viktor Gerashchenko said today. He said that if the International Monetary Fund comes through with a loan, the money would be used to replenish the Central Bank's reserves, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Gerashchenko also said that the government would soon decide which of the country's struggling banks will receive state support and which will be allowed to fail, the Interfax news agency reported. Practically all of the country's 18 most important banks, which control 80 percent of Russia's banking operations and 45 percent of its private deposits, need government help, he said. ``We will decide who will survive and who won't on a case-by-case basis,'' Gerashchenko told top members of the Russian government, according to Interfax. Many of Russia's banks were ruined or seriously crippled after the government stopped propping up the ruble and defaulted on some debts beginning Aug. 17 in response to a financial crisis at home and in world markets. The government's efforts to revive the economy have been hindered by officials' inability to resurrect the banking system.
