Russian PM: "There is no crisis"

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov urged everyone to refrain from dramatizing current stock market situation caused by a drastic plunge of “Yukos” shares, reports RIA “Novosti”.

“We should not dramatize the situation; there exist no grounds for this. Latest stock exchange results indicated that crisis is no place near,” stated Fradkov to journalists.

After Tax Ministry of the Russian Federation addressed “Yukos” with another claim for a total sum of 98 billion rubles (for 2001) on Thursday, the company's shares plunged drastically. The shares continued to fall all through Friday morning. Afterwards, the stock prices have stabilized. In sum,  “Yukos” shares went down in price by 15.6% at Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and by 16.9% at RTS stock exchange.