The minister admitted that the financial services market has witnessed the panic recently. "It can be compared with the situation when someone shouts "fire" in the movies and the panic bursts out", said Mr. Kudrin.
"Certainly, there will be victims. But to shout "fire" one should see flame or smoke. There is neither flame or smoke now", said the minister.
Mr. Kudrin pointed out that underway in the country was the banking reform. This process involves changing a large variety of the banking sector performances, particularly, the level of the capital adequacy, stressed the minister. "It requires the banking system to exert certain efforts", he said.
"The fact that some banks fail to do it, and some, like the GUTA-bank and the Sodbusinessbank, are found in certain violations, can not apply to all banks", emphasized the minister.
Mr. Kudrin assessed the Central Bank's policy in the current situation as "rather reasonable". There are some banks that "do not quite comply with the Central Bank's standards", and the Bank of Russia has been critisized for a long time "for being inactive and insufficiently severe" to such banks, the finance minister pointed out.
"The measures against two or three banks should not give rise to panic", he stressed.
The growing liquidity of commercial banks and the continuous inflow of the population's deposits prove the stability of the banking sector, said Mr. Kudrin. According to the information he had, "the banks' liquidity had been growing over the last two weeks" as compared to the average rates. "The inflow of the population's deposits in the recent week had continued and suffered no decrease", emphasized the finance minister.
Thus, the commercial banks have sufficient liquidity at their disposal to meet their obligations to the depositors, believes Mr. Kudrin. In particular, he expressed confidence that the Alpha-bank had enough resources to discharge all obligations.
"I can clearly say that there is no crisis", emphasized the minister once again.
Touching upon the situation around the GUTA-bank, Mr. Kudrin said that the decision on its buy-out by the Vneshtorgbank could be taken today or tomorrow.
"Today I expect the decision of the Vneshtorgbank and the GUTA-bank's boards. It must be announced today or tomorrow. After it we will promptly convene the supervisory board (Vneshtorgbank) and take the decision", stressed the minister.
According to him, the government is interested in seeing the transaction on purchase of the GUTA-bank by the Vneshtorgbank as soon as possible.
He pointed out that the Vneshtorgbank's participation in purchasing and restructuring the GUTA-bank would not entail any damage for the Vneshtorgbank itself.
"From the commercial viewpoint, it is an absolutely normal transaction. All the voiced proposals are adequate and retain the Vneshtorgbank's entire potential", emphasized the minister.
With this regard the Vneshtorgbank's customers should take the planned transaction easy, believes the minister.
The finance minister stated that he had not received any proposals from YUKOS on developing the back taxes instalment plan (the back-tax bills for 2000-2001 amount to nearly $7 billion).
The minister pointed out that currently the Taxation Ministry was not considering the issue of granting the instalment plan to YUKOS.
"The YUKOS case is under the execution proceedings, handled by the respective judicial branch of authority", said Mr. Kudrin.
In response to the question as to possible ways of settling the situation, the minister said: "The company's shareholders and management have assets that can be sold".
At the same time, according to Mr. Kudrin, the issue of deferring the payments was not the case. "There may be a pause here, but it is anyway provided for in the legislation. No other decisions are required here", said the minister.
In response to the question how YUKOS could sell the "frozen" assets, Mr. Kudrin said: "As far as I know, the company is working".
(At the same time, against the background of Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin's statements and seizure of servers in YUKOS' registrar M-Reestr company, YUKOS' shares fell in the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange and in the Russian Commercial System.
The shares went down 3.96% in the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange and 3.59% in the Russian Commercial System.
Today, Russia's Minister of Justice Yuri Chaika stated that the Russian Justice Ministry anticipated prompt recovery of YUKOS' back taxes. "All activities with regard to YUKOS lie within the applicable legislation. Let no one have illusions. I do not have any doubts about this, the court's ruling is being and will be satisfied", said Mr. Chaika. In response to the reporters' question on the terms of the monetary assets recovery Mr. Chaika pointed out: "It is hard to say. We are doing our best to step up the process". Underway are investigations in the regions, namely in the Tomsk region, in the Khanti-Mansi Autonomous Area and in Samara, said the minister. "Some accounts have already been arrested", said Mr. Chaika.)
The regions' revenues growth in real terms will amount to 20-40% in the near 3-5 years, said Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin. Speaking at the Law-Makers' Council on Friday, he pointed out that these figures of the revenues growth would apply to all the Federation's constituents. Speaking about the upcoming benefits monetarization, the finance minister stated that it would not make a single region suffer. "I can give you the example of Moscow. When Moscow lost part of its revenues due to abolishing the sales tax, it managed to repair the losses within one year. The annual industrial growth in Moscow exceeds 20%", he stressed.
According to him, these figures can be achieved through the country's economic growth.
"And we also keep in mind that this economic growth enables smooth transition to the benefits monetarization", said Mr. Kudrin.
