Russia's debt to the world (play on words)! Greg. *** LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The outside world's debt and equity exposure to crisis-ridden Russia exceeds $200 billion, the Financial Times said on Friday, quoting a research body owned by leading banks. It said the figures produced by the Washington-based Institute of International Finance included $194 billion in all external debt and an estimated $11 billion for accumulated foreign investment in Russian equities at the end of 1997. But the institute pointed out that exposure did not necessarily mean loss. It quoted Dutch bank ING Barings <ING.AS> as saying $118 billion in wealth had been "destroyed" in Russia since the start of the year, which included money lost by Russians. The bank said the figure was broken down as follows: a $57 billion fall in stock market value, a $31 billion fall in the value of outside debt and a $30 billion loss in value on GKOs, rouble-denominated treasury bills. The newspaper quoted economists and bankers as saying Russia's exposure to foreign creditors in various types of hard currency-denominated bonds was $54.5 billion. -- Gregory Schwartz Dept. of Political Science York University 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada Tel: (416) 736-5265 Fax: (416) 736-5686 Web: http://www.yorku.ca/dept/polisci
