DUMA APPROVES DUBININ’S CANDIDACY.

On November 22, the Duma overwhelmingly approved Sergei Dubinin as the new chairman of Russia’s Central Bank. Born in 1950, Dubinin worked as an academic economist before entering the government. In February 1994, he was appointed acting finance minister and appears to have adhered to reasonably strict fiscal policies. However, he and the then head of the Central Bank were sacked in October 1994, in the wake of "Black Tuesday," when the Yeltsin leadership was searching for scapegoats for the ruble’s collapse against the US dollar on the Moscow International Currency Exchange. Dubinin preaches the importance of measures to curb inflation in order to encourage investment, including Western investment. Immediately after the Duma approved his appointment, Dubinin told a press conference that he would continue the anti-inflation policy of the present government. He added that a decision on thefuture of the currency corridor would be announced about a month before the end of the year and would, he said, contain no major surprises. (In July, the Central Bank announced that the ruble would be kept within a "corridor" of 4,300-4,900 rubles to the US dollar.The corridor will be in place up till the end of this year, by which time a decision will have to made whether and at whatlevel to continue it.) A decision, probably covering the first three months of 1996, is therefore to be expected within the next two weeks or so. (7)

Disagreement Surfaces Within Leadership on Financial Stabilization.