Finance Ministry reserves funds for payment to IMF

The Russian Finance Ministry has reserved almost EUR26.239m for a regulardebt payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the press service ofthe Finance Ministry reported to RBC today. According to the initialschedule, the payment date is August 25. As this is not a working day, thepayment will be made before the schedule - on Friday, August 23, theMinistry stressed. This will be the third payment to the IMF in August.In total, Russia is to allocate $1.5bn in debt payments to the IMF thisyear. According to preliminary data of the Russian Finance Ministry, thedebt of the Russian government to the fund amounted to $7.7bn as of January1, 2002..