CHUBAIS JUBILANT.

First Deputy Premier Anatoly Chubais says the adoption of the 1996 federal budget will make it possible "at last" to establish "elementary order" in the country. (10) Chubais described the Duma’s decision as the fruit of the government’s economic achievements in 1995, "which we entered with a monthly inflation rate of 18 percent and which we are leaving with inflation at 4 percent a month." Chubais said that, if the 1996 budget is adhered to, inflation will drop to a monthly rate of 1.9 percent in 1996. According to the UN’s Economic Commission for Europe, which published its annual survey this week, Russia is now closer to an economic turnaround than at any time since the collapse of communism.

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