RUSSIAN BANK ASSOCIATION WARY OF GOVERNMENT PROMISES.

The heads of more than 500 of Moscow’s commercial banks asked the Russian government and central bank to correct their credit financing policy. They said that the government’s present monetary policy has virtually destroyed the interbank credit market, which may eventually lead to the complete cessation of private investment in the industrial and agricultural sectors. However Stolichny Bank president Aleksandr Smolensky, who is close to the Chernomyrdin government, said that his fellow bankers are simply looking for a scapegoat because they are unprepared to face market competition. In Smolensky’s words, the Central Bank’s greatest mistake was not that it intervened too much in the market, but that it did not exercise sufficient control over the banks. (8)

Russian Government Redefines State Secrets.