ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 18, 1997 TAG: 9703180070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MOSCOW
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
Boris Nemtsov is known for issuing local bonds, reorganizing collective farms and retooling industrial dinosaurs
President Boris Yeltsin, reaching beyond Moscow for one of Russia's youngest and most popular reformists, named Boris Nemtsov as a first deputy prime minister Monday.
By picking the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Yeltsin has sent the strongest signal yet that he is determined to reanimate Russia's economic transformation.
The Kremlin also announced that Anatoly Chubais, who was named a first deputy prime minister last week, will serve simultaneously as finance minister, giving him broad powers to oversee the economy and focus on the urgent problem of overhauling Russia's chaotic and ailing tax system.
Nemtsov, 37, is known for his pioneering regional economic changes, including issuing local bonds, nurturing reorganization of the collective farms, privatizing small shops and retooling industrial dinosaurs. His innovative ideas included a clean-water program for schoolchildren, offering subsidies to women who have a second or third child, and free enterprise zones to give tax breaks to faltering factories.
Situated about 250 miles east of Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, known as Gorky during the Soviet years, is Russia's third-largest city and one of its more prosperous regional hubs. Nemtsov is widely regarded as the leading example of the rise of regional leaders who are gaining power and achieving results independent of federal authorities in Moscow.
Given the appointment last week of Chubais, 41, Yeltsin appears to be giving form to his second term, with an agenda as far-reaching as his first government in 1992 - which freed prices and trade, and began the massive privatizations.
``I have a challenging offer for you,'' Yeltsin told Nemtsov in a Kremlin meeting. ``Two young men, you and Anatoly Chubais in the government, will set up a fresh young team from scratch. No appointments have been made. All appointments for ministerial positions will be cleared with you.''
Yeltsin vowed he would not be ``shuffling the old Moscow pack.''
Nemtsov was appointed governor by Yeltsin in 1991 and was elected governor in December 1995 with more than 60 percent of the vote at the same time that the Communists were scoring big gains in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma. Nemtsov is genuinely popular, while Chubais, who has never held elective office, is widely blamed for the inequities of the privatization program that he oversaw.
Nemtsov has been given responsibility for troubling social issues, including Russia's deepening crisis of wage and pension arrears, and for state monopolies.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB