Greenspan Opens Moscow Talks on Economic Morass

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan began talks today with Soviet officials on how the guardian of world capitalism might help the bastion of communism out of its acute economic difficulties.

Greenspan held talks with bank chairmen and state planning officials.

Leonid Abalkin, a deputy prime minister and senior economic adviser to Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, invited Greenspan to Moscow to seek his advice on how to solve massive economic problems that are contributing to widespread unrest.

Greenspan is not the first Fed chairman to visit Moscow--Arthur F. Burns and William Miller came in the 1970s--but his visit coincides with widespread impatience at the slow pace of political and economic reform.

Greenspan was invited several months ago for what officials said was a symbolic visit during which he would listen, learn and offer advice.

Abalkin and Greenspan are to meet Tuesday. In two days of talks, the Soviet side is expected to ask for Greenspan’s opinion on how to close Moscow’s yawning budget gap, reduce its ruble surplus and end shortages of food and consumer goods.

Soviet officials say they are studying ways to make the ruble a truly convertible currency, although such plans are in the earliest of stages.

Billions of rubles are locked into the economy in the form of private savings because ordinary citizens have so few goods on which to spend them.

Greenspan arrived Sunday evening along with Robert Zoellick, adviser to Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and the Fed’s top international expert, Edwin Truman.

They held talks today with the chairman of the Soviet State Bank, Viktor Gershchenko, and the chairman of the Bank for Foreign Economic Activity, Yury Moskovsy, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.

Greenspan was to have lunch with the chairman of the State Price Committee, Vyacheslav Senchagov.