Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 16, 1993 TAG: 9304160051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
7 RICHEST NATIONS TO GIVE YELTSIN A $30 BILLION BOOST
The seven strongest industrial nations will devote $28.4 billion in aid to Russia and, of them, the United States will add another $1.8 billion, officials said Thursday.The Group of Seven also said in a communique that they will forgive $15 billion in Russian debt.
The outpouring of support for embattled Russian President Boris Yeltsin was an endorsement of his attempt to convert Russia's state-run economy to a system of private ownership.
It also was a thinly veiled attempt to persuade Russian voters to stay with Yeltsin, with the promise their lives would be improved with transfusions of Western assistance and advice.
Details of the assistance program came Thursday in Tokyo, where foreign and finance ministers from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada are winding up their summit.
A day earlier, Washington proposed spending $4 billion on converting state-run factories to private ownership.
Japan on Wednesday detailed its first major aid package for Moscow - $1.8 billion in loans and grants. The Japanese hope that if Yeltsin wins an April 25 referendum on his leadership, he will come to Tokyo in May and arrange the return of four islands seized at the close of World War II.
Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev held out hope that Japan would recover the four sparsely populated islands in the Kuril chain. He told TBS television: "The subject of the territorial problem will naturally be on the agenda."
Britain, meanwhile, announced it would contribute $600 million - including $500 million in export credits and investment insurance and $50 million in technical assistance - to support economic reform in Russia and other former Soviet republics.
A privatization fund proposed by the United States would be launched with a $500 million U.S. contribution. The other six nations would be expected to provide $1.5 billion, and the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development would add $2 billion.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said the fund would free Russia's central bank of some of the burden of converting oil, gas and other major industries to private control. That would save thousands of jobs and reduce inflation caused by the bank's issuance of easy credit, he said.