Soviets Plan First Auction of Currencies

The Soviet Union soon will auction foreign exchange for the first time as a first step toward making the ruble convertible, a top Soviet banker said in an interview published Thursday.

“We’re clearing up final technical problems,” Juri Moskovsky, chairman of the Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs (Vneshekonombank), told Pravda. “I think it will take place in the near future; we would like it in May.

“With the help of this channel, enterprises which work only on the domestic market will have access to foreign currency,” he said. “At first only Soviet enterprises and organizations will participate, then joint ventures, then foreign firms.”

The auction, intended to distribute foreign exchange more evenly among Soviet enterprises, will for the first time set a market rate for the ruble, which economists say is grossly overvalued at the current official rate of around $1.60.

Western tourists in Moscow say they are regularly offered up to 10 rubles to the dollar on the black market.

In an interview with the government newspaper Izvestia, V. Malkevich, chairman of the Soviet Chamber of Trade and Commerce, described the auction as “a first serious step in the creation of a convertible ruble.”