Russians Press IMF for at Least $10 Billion

After winning praise and encouragement in a huddle with President Boris N. Yeltsin, Russia’s top economic figures hunkered down for what they hoped would be the final round of tough negotiations with international lenders Saturday on a $10-billion-plus rescue from a strangling debt crisis.

Kremlin officials close to the talks said that they adjourned late in the evening without concluding a firm deal but that it appeared an agreement was imminent.

A day after Prime Minister Sergei V. Kiriyenko disclosed that Russia’s outstanding debt equals 44% of its national worth, he met with Yeltsin and key financial strategists to go over their end-game strategy for crucial talks with representatives of the International Monetary Fund that lasted into the night.

Russia is hoping for at least $10 billion from the IMF so it can restructure its finances and escape the vicious circle of borrowing short-term, at triple-digit interest rates, to pay off maturing debts.

Falling world oil prices and chronic failure to collect taxes have deprived the government of billions of dollars in expected revenue, prompting the cash-strapped Kremlin to delay wages and pensions for state workers by months.

That practice is increasingly angering Russians and inciting strikes and disruptive transportation blockades.

“Yeltsin praised the Russian negotiators and instructed them to complete the talks with international financial organizations as soon as possible,” the presidential press service reported after the 90-minute meeting at Yeltsin’s country retreat outside Moscow.

The president’s special envoy for negotiations with international lenders, Anatoly B. Chubais, met late Friday night and into the wee hours of Saturday with World Bank representatives to work out an agreement in principle for fresh credits from that agency.

But IMF officials who have been shuttling between Washington and Moscow for months to weigh Russia’s worthiness for further loans have withheld a final decision on a Moscow bailout, reportedly waiting for the Russian parliament to formally endorse the government’s stabilization plan.

Kiriyenko on Friday won backing for his crisis-easing measures from the Federation Council, the upper house, after a candid speech in which he laid out in detail the severity of Russia’s debt crisis.

Approval from the more contentious lower house, the Duma, is unlikely for at least another week because the deputies are in recess until Wednesday.

Russian media initially reported Saturday that Kiriyenko was to meet with the senior IMF official now in Russia, John Odling-Smee, in what seemed a hint of an imminent agreement. But the prime minister’s office later said no such meeting was planned.

A spokesman for Chubais said “significant progress” has already been made toward a big IMF loan for stabilizing the economy.

“There is every reason to believe that the final text of this document will be coordinated within the next few days,” the Chubais aide, Andrei Trapeznikov, was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency.

Yeltsin on Friday lobbied his country’s case in telephone conversations with President Clinton, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. On Saturday, he continued his telephone diplomacy with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.