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Russia halts ruble trading
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September 21, 1998: 8:36 a.m. ET
Central bank stops currency trade again as it tracks down delinquent banks
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Trading of the ruble was halted again Monday while Russia's central bank compiles a list of the commercial banks that failed to turn in their list of overdue payments.
The bank said Monday its official rate for Sept. 22 would be the same as previously announced, 16.3818 to the dollar.
A MICEX official said the few deals transacted Monday between two trade suspensions won't be reversed, though he couldn't confirm that ruble-dollar trade would resume Tuesday.
The central bank said Monday it suspended foreign exchange trade until Tuesday on the main market, the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) electronic SELT system.
In the interim, it is identifying the banks that failed to cooperate Friday with a plan to re-establish the frozen payments system. Those banks will temporarily be excluded from foreign exchange trading.
In connection with a plan to clear up bank debts, the central bank also ordered the MICEX to halt ruble trading for same-day settlement on its electronic system Friday as the currency slipped to around 19 to the dollar for next-day settlement, a near-record low.
And Thursday, the central bank said it will begin printing money to buy back government bonds from selected Russian banks. It also allowed some commercial banks in Russia to withdraw their reserves at the central bank to help get the payments system flowing again.
Ruble-dollar trade, though thin, is the only domestic market with any indicative activity in recent weeks, following the devaluation of the ruble and the suspension of the domestic government securities market.
President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov also vowed Monday to complete Russia's new government Monday, offering a senior post to an opposition figure.
Yeltsin appointed as a deputy prime minister Gennady Kulik, a 63-year-old member of the Agrarian Party, which is allied to the Communists, the Kremlin said. Itar-Tass news agency said Kulik will be responsible for agriculture.
Yeltsin said he won't announce the final government lineup until all candidates had been informed and accepted, acknowledging how hard it is to persuade people to join a government facing Russia's worst economic crisis in years.
"Today Yevgeny Maksimovich and I are wrapping up the staffing question. There will be no unfinished work here," Yeltsin said in televised remarks at a meeting with Primakov in the president's office in the Kremlin.
"It is unethical to name names beforehand -- we will talk to everyone first...This is difficult but reliable."
Primakov still has many posts to fill, including the finance ministry, more than a week after he was appointed as a compromise prime minister to appease the Communists in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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