Financial crisis yet to peak: Russia
Washington, Oct 13 (RIA Novosti) The global financial crisis has yet to peak and
individual governments must now take appropriate measures to deal with its effects,
Russia's finance minister Alexei Kudrin has warned.
Kudrin led the Russian delegation in Washington at the Oct 10-13 meetings of world
finance leaders.
The Group of Seven (G7) industrial countries comprising the US, Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada, met Friday before participating Saturday in a meeting of
the Group of 20, a wider group of developing-emerging markets that includes Russia.
"I believe that the International Monetary Fund and G7 statements at first glance
appears to be a common position," Kudrin told journalists Sunday.
"However, every government must make their own decision, because each government has
its own resources, its own central bank. Therefore, every administration must make
decisions in accordance with its own situation."
US President George W. Bush also took part in the G20 meeting.
"It doesn't matter if you're a rich country or a poor country, a developed country or a
developing country -- we're all in this together. We must work collaboratively," he
said.
The current global credit crunch started in the United States and quickly spread to
Asia and Europe, leading to record losses at the financial markets, rising interest rates
and a liquidity shortage.
Kudrin said the current financial crisis has mainly so far been reflected in Russia by
the outflow of $33 billion of capital in August-September. This, along with a fall in
world oil prices, has, he said, been the main reason behind a drop in the country's gold
reserves.
Russia's international reserves have fallen from around $580 billion to $540 billion in
the past two months, the minister said.
"One of the challenges of the global financial crisis is that developing markets have
been directly dragged in. We are not untouched by this, we are also participants in this
crisis," he said.
Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, approved Friday anti-crisis
packages worth $86 billion. The government has earmarked $50 billion of budget funds to
banks and firms to refinance foreign debt, and some $36 billion to key banks in
subordinated loans.
Russia's two stock exchanges, the MICEX and the RTS, did not open for full trading
Friday on advice from the country's market regulator.
