Russia in for another crash, financiers warn Cabinet

The Moscow International Currency Association is uneasy with national financial developments, though the federal Cabinet does not share its alarm.

The association appealed on Friday to the Cabinet, the State Duma-parliament's lower house, and the Central Bank of Russia on a forthcoming 5th anniversary, August 18, of the August 1998 financial collapse.

Association experts call the government to ban domestic and overseas loaning up to 2010 as credits undermine national economic resources and bloat federal expenditures.

As the Duma debates a currency regulation bill in its second and third readings at the autumn session, it ought to take into consideration association-drafted amendments to dramatically liberalise financial transactions and make the rouble a freely convertible unit.

The Central Bank will be wise to abolish compulsory corporate exchanges of foreign currency profits into roubles, and consider the possibility of reducing deductions to compulsory reserve funds back to the early 1999 norm, the Association's appeal says.