FINANCE MINISTER BLAMES IMF FOR RUSSIA’S BUDGET PROBLEMS.

Finance Minister Vladimir Panskov said that the failure of the IMF to provide sufficient and timely assistance to Moscow was behind the current budgetary shortfalls, Segodnyareported May 25. Panskov said that tax collections were improved, although earnings from privatization had been less than planned. But Andrei Illarionov, the head of the Moscow Economic Analysis Institute told the paper that overspending was the problem. He noted that in 1992, the Russian state budget had been only 16 percent of GDP; now, as a result of lack controls over spending the Chechen war, the state budget had risen to 26 percent of GDP in the first quarter of 1995.

Federation Council Passes Defense Payment Bill.