RUSSIAN BANK BREAKS NEW GROUND IN AZERBAIJAN.

Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev yesterday attended the inauguration of the Baku subsidiary of the Moscow-based Most Bank. According to the president, Most-Azerbaijan became the first bank in that country with 100 percent foreign capital; and it also became Most Bank’s first foreign affiliate. Creation of banks with full foreign ownership became possible in Azerbaijan after the Majlis removed the 49 percent ceiling on the share of foreign capital in the local banks’ charter capital. (18)

Most Bank and its president Vladimir Gusinsky have in the last few years been politically close to Russia’s pro-reform political parties, and acquired a mass media network serving as a vehicle for criticizing authoritarian tendencies in the Yeltsin administration. The bank and its president have at times been targeted for retaliation by the Presidential Security Service chief, Lt. General Aleksandr Korzhakov, and others in Yeltsin’s circle.

Kazakhstan Legalizes Private Land Ownership.