Moscow Ready to Privatize Stores : Market reform: City’s plan to sell off 4,500 businesses could be launched in days.

After months of vacillation, Moscow’s government is on the verge of launching a bold plan to sell off thousands of state-owned stores, restaurants and other businesses in the Soviet capital, the radical economist in charge of the privatization program said Monday.

Larissa Piyasheva, known for her outspoken calls for a sharp break with the Soviet Union’s old, centrally planned economy, told reporters that the program to sell some 4,500 establishments to private owners is ready and could be introduced in days.

“Grand economic reforms have really started in Moscow,” she said. “I call on everyone to invest money in property because everything will be sold according to prices we can afford, according to democratic prices. I call on everyone to become merchants.”

Although Moscow Mayor Gavriil Popov also backs radical reforms, many of his projects have foundered, blocked either by red tape, bureaucratic resistance, battles in the City Council or philosophical arguments over the fairest way to sell or give away state-owned property.

But now, with Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin’s economic reforms getting under way and the state about to lift its control over prices, making them likely to rocket upward within weeks, Moscow has been forced to move.

If successful, its privatization plan could serve as a model for other cities.

If it fails or “if we’re slow with this reform, the people will take to the streets because of the lack of goods on the shelves,” Piyasheva said.

The principles of Moscow’s retail privatization, she said, are “maximally simple.”

Under her plan, workers in every store, restaurant or service establishment will have two weeks to decide whether they want to buy their workplace at a reasonable price. The price will be determined by calculating the depreciated cost of the firm’s equipment, then adding in the value of its current funds and 500 rubles--$300, according to the commercial rate of exchange--for each square yard of building space.

If 51% of a firm’s workers opt for the buyout, they effectively become its owners as soon as they inform the city of their decision.

If the majority votes against the buyout, the establishment goes up for open auction, in which all interested buyers, including foreigners, would be invited.

From the moment a collective declares its intention to buy its own business, “no one can take it away from you,” Piyasheva assured her listeners.

“The right to property is a sacred right,” she said, in a forceful contradiction of more than 70 years of Communist ideology aimed at rooting out all instincts of private ownership--and entrepreneurship. “It’s a primary right, the most important right.”

Piyasheva said she plans to have privatized all of the city’s small stores and service industries by Jan. 1.

The plan has the support of Popov and, indirectly, of Yeltsin, Piyasheva said. But doubts remain about whether it will run into opposition from the contentious deputies of the Moscow City Council. It is due to come before the Moscow government today for final approval.

“I hope that in three or four weeks, Moscow will already be able to breathe a little easier,” Piyasheva said.

With shops privatized and state controls on prices lifted, sellers attracted by the capital’s higher prices will fill Moscow’s stores with goods, she argued; if Moscow consumers cannot afford the new prices, store owners will have to lower their prices.

The Piyasheva plan, with its universal free prices, clearly contradicts Popov’s recent announcement that ration coupons would soon be issued in Moscow for staple goods whose prices would be kept artificially low. Piyasheva could not explain the discrepancy, saying only that she could not answer for other parts of the city government.