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Russia reserves running dry
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September 3, 1998: 9:53 a.m. ET
Yeltsin makes few concessions to Duma, ruble continues to slide
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - President Boris Yeltsin presented his political opponents with a revised pact on Thursday to form a new Russian government, as the beleaguered ruble continued to slide and the central bank said reserves are running dry.
Russia's central bank said its gold and foreign exchange reserves fell to $12.7 billion on August 28 from $13.4 billion on August 21.
The central bank's reserves have been sliding steadily as it tried to support the ruble although it said last week it would no longer carry out large interventions to support the battered currency.
The news came as no relief to the battered ruble, which slid on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) electronic system. The ruble was last quoted Thursday with a 16.000/22.000 bid/offer to the dollar.
The ruble, effectively allowed to devalue last month, had earlier been set at 13.4608 to the dollar under a new system of "electronic" fixings.
Yeltsin is preparing to send parliament a new version of a political pact Thursday offering concessions in return for the communist-led party's approval of his prime minister-nominee, Viktor Chernomyridn.
The pact makes "insignificant" changes to the one that the main opposition Communist Party shot down last Sunday, according to a Kremlin spokesperson.
The Duma failed to sign up a political deal that would have curbed some of Yeltsin's sweeping powers. It overwhelmingly rejected Chernomyrdin as permanent prime minister in a vote on Monday.
Yeltsin has confirmed Chernomyrdin as his nominee at a second vote scheduled for Friday. If the Communist-led chamber rejects his candidate three times, Yeltsin has to dissolve the Duma and call an early election.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Jacques Santer said on Thursday the European Union was unhappy with parts of the now frozen International Monetary Fund program for Russia and may seek changes before any new one was put in place.
"A certain amount of adjustment might be needed (to the IMF program) even if the main elements remain," Santer told a news conference on the Commission's assessment of the Russia crisis. 
--from staff and wire reports
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