Stock prices continue to fall in Russia - 1 August, 2003

Prices of Russian shares continue to decline. Prices of shares in almost all companies have decreased on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange. The decline is still led by Sibneft shares. Their price fell by more than 11 percent as of 3:30 p.m. Sberbank shares continued to go down rapidly too (their price was down 3.4 percent). Analysts remarked that the threat of demonopolization of the banking services market, voiced by some members of the Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (the cancellation of the "privileges" in the form of state guarantees for deposits, integration of Sberbank into the system of deposit insurance on the general terms, etc.), had had a negative effect on the attractiveness of Sberbank's shares to investors.

The RTS index decreased by 0.7 percent to 453.84 points.