Conditions In Ukraine More Attractive than In Russia or Even Switzerland, Russian Investor Believes
National Reserve Bank of Russia Governor Aleksandr Lebedev believes that two recent events — the session of the presidential Consultative Council For Foreign Investment and the opening in Kyiv of the National Reserve Bank-Ukraine — are no mere coincidence and quite symbolic. According to the Russian banker at his June 19 press conference in Kyiv, of no less symbolic significance is the sale by the NRB two weeks ago of its share in a Zurich bank. The conditions for the Russian capital in Ukraine are much better than in Western Europe, the banker confirmed, stressing that Ukraine treats foreign and domestic investors better than Russia.
Ukraine has diligently studied Russia’s experience and, due to its slight lag, was able to avoid Russia’s mistakes, Mr. Lebedev said. As an example, he cited the registration of NRB- Ukraine by the National Bank of Ukraine which took three months and twelve days, against one year and three months it took to register the NRB’s subsidiary in Saint-Petersburg. At some point, NRB had even to file a suit against the Tsentrobank of Russia “to make the bank perform its duties,” he added.
The banker told journalists about his meetings with President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh during the session of the Consultative Council For Foreign Investment. “I accepted their congratulations on the opening of NRB-Ukraine with great satisfaction. I was very pleased to learn that the Prime Minister, whom I know less well than the president, is well informed on NRB performance in Ukraine prior to the opening of NRB-Ukraine,” Mr. Lebedev said. He recalled that NRB is well ahead of any Western bank for the size of its financial and industrial investment. According to the banker, investment in Ukraine’s eurobonds and direct investment in authorized legal persons totals $420 million.
Answering The Day’s question whether he considers the international forum, which ended last Tuesday effective, Mr. Lebedev told about the proposals he made at the forum aimed at returning to Ukraine and Russia the capital illegally funneled abroad. In the banker’s opinion, Western countries and international finance organizations are to be pushed to create “an unfavored nation” status for illegal Russian and Ukrainian money. In this respect, any measures are permissible: from publishing black lists of banks involved in money laundering to filing law suits against them. The other proposal was to liberalize the so far complex procedure for opening bank accounts by off-shore nonresident entities so that businesses with no trust in the state can deposit their capital in Ukraine and Russia in anonymous accounts. As Lebedev believes, in some years our governments will pardon those businessmen who transfer their money in due time to help the economies of their home countries.
Meanwhile, the NRB leadership considers Ukraine’s debt for Russian natural gas the most promising investment priority for it. The NRB has submitted to the governments of Ukraine and Russia its proposals to restructure the debt in Naftohaz Ukrayiny corporate eurobonds, Lebedev confirmed. NRB has plans to buy out these bonds jointly with the international consortium of banks in order to reduce Ukraine’s foreign debt by converting it to hryvnias and then investing in various construction projects, including in the Crimea, all under the supervision of the National Bank. In this context, Lebedev called absolutely unrealistic the idea to convert Ukraine’s gas debt into privatization securities since this runs counter to the laws and the national interests of Ukraine.
