IMF Executive Director Horst Koehler To Visit Moscow

Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund Horst Koehler embarks on a three-day visit to Moscow on Tuesday to discuss further cooperation between Russia and the IMF, reported a Russian finance ministry official who is taking part in Russia-IMF consultations. The parties will focus their attention on budget policy and ways of improving the taxation system, said the source, adding that Koehler's visit begins on the date agreed between the sides. In the meantime, the visit of an IMF mission, which was initially scheduled to begin on October 10, has been postponed until later. The mission of IMF experts will be headed by Director of the fund's 2nd European Department John Odling-Smee and his deputy Gerard Belanger, who supervises the work of IMF missions in Russia for 3 years now. The task facing the mission is to prepare a monitoring of the state of Russian economy and to exchange opinions on 2002 budget policy with Russian economic experts.