Why not put your IMF loot in the safest banks in the world?

Johnson's Russia List, 11 September 1998

Capital Flight

By Fred Weir

MOSCOW (CP) -- Capital has hemorrhaged out of post-Soviet Russia on a scale unseen anywhere else in the world, leaving the country without needed resources to rebuild its economy, a joint Canadian-Russian report says.

The 18-month study, sponsored by Russia's official Institute of Economics and the University of Western Ontario's Centre for the Study of International Economic Relations, concluded that as much as $140-billion (US) -- almost $2-billion per month -- fled Russia during the first six years of market reforms.

"There has been a very large net outflow of capital from Russia, and this certainly has aggravated the present crisis," says John Whalley, one of the report's main authors. "It means Russia has lost crucial development capital, money that could otherwise have been invested in Russia and used to generate economic growth."

Five Canadian and five Russian economists worked on the study, which is the first to put a reliable figure on the headlong flight of wealth out of Russia after the onset of market reforms in 1992. The amount of money escaping Russia was greater than the combined capital flight from Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico and Peru during the turbulent 1980's, the study said.

"While capital movements are very common the world over, Russia has experienced an abnormal, even cataclysmic, loss of vital resources," said Leonid Abalkin, head of the Russian team. "Now Russia's economy is like a locomotive headed downhill."

The report was completed before Russia's current financial collapse, but at a public presentation Thursday the authors said many of the warning signs of incipient crisis were detailed in it. Russia's economy has imploded in recent months. The Moscow stock exchange has lost 80 per cent of its value since January, the buying power of the rouble has halved in barely a month, and most private banks are teetering on the brink of insolvency.

Although Thursday's appointment of the popular foreign minister, Yevgeny Primakov, as acting prime minister may take the steam out of a tense political standoff between President Boris Yeltsin and the opposition-led parliament, Russia still faces rising social unrest and a growing wave of labour protests.

"We have emphasized that the numbers for capital flight are so large, this issue is clearly central to Russia's political disaster," said Whalley.

Political instability, a lack of legal property rights, haphazard privatization of state-owned assets and widespread official corruption are underlying reasons that Russia's new rich have exported their wealth in such prodigous amounts, the report says. When the study began last year the Russian economists favoured cracking down on capital flight while the Canadians argued it was just a symptom that could only be cured by tackling the basic causes. But on Thursday their positions appeared slightly reversed.

"I have gone from a supporter of strong capital controls to a believer in the senselessness of trying to fight the problem head on," said Abalkin. "That would only lead to criminalization of the process."

Capital flight will only cease when Russia's legal environment and business climate become attractive enough to keep money at home and attract foreign investors, he said. Whalley said all that is true, but the global financial meltdown beginning in Asia last year and now tearing through Russia has given many Western economists pause to rethink a few beliefs.

"A lot of voices are now arguing that some degree of insulation from international markets may be necessary," he said.

"The Russians did everything Western agencies told them to do, and when you look at the outcome now, it's pretty catastrophic. You can't just come here and tell people it's the magic of the marketplace.'

Rossiyskaya Gazeta October 6, 1998

"The Flight of Capital"

Article by Igor Tsukanov

The other day, RF Prime Minister Yevgeniy Primakov met with major Russian exporters. The subject of the conversation was the huge amount of money which has, for many years now, been a deep river flowing out of Russia and settling in foreign banks. Up to now, it has been primarily the scholars in our country who have been working on the problem of the "flight" of capital from Russia.

In particular, scholars from the Institute of Economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with the Canadian University of Western Ontario, who have been dedicated to studying the problem for about one-and-a-half years. The state has also been working on this, but in the person of so many bodies (the TsB [Central Bank] Special Administration, the State Customs Committee (GTK), the Federal Currency and Export Control Service (VEK), the Department of Tax Policy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economics and even the State Investment Corporation), that there was no occasion to talk about specific, especially unified measures.

The scholars of the Institute of Economics were the first to count up: a total of about $140 billion has left Russia since 1992. This is more than the sum of money which "vanished" from Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico and Peru taken together during 1979-1987 (the period of the financial crisis in these states). By 1997, the amount of former Russian capital which has now settled abroad reached one-fourth of the domestic GDP, and practically equaled the value of the country"s foreign debt!

The reason for such an active outflow of money is obvious -- it is, first of all, the lack of confidence of our countrymen (incidentally, not of them alone) in the ruble and the entire financial policy followed by the state. It is quite natural that the most noticeable "splashes" of the economy"s dollarization and transfer of currency abroad fell in October 1994 (the "black Tuesday" on the MMVB [Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange], during the period of elections for the RF President, and hisillness.

Researchers calculated that Russia has lost up to $17 billion yearly since 1994. We can only guess how much money "migrated" beyond the borders of our native land during the last one-and-a-half months....

At the meeting with the exporters (the directors of Gazprom, LUKOIL, YUKOS and the banks servicing them, Sberbank, ONEKSIM Bank, MENATEP, Rossiyskiy Kredit and Avtobank, took part in it), the Russian prime minister stated: by the beginning of September, the country had failed to receive, in the established time limit, export currency earnings amounting to $3.4 billion dollars. Moreover, according to the data of Ye. Primakov, "in approximately 80 percent of the cases there had been instructions from the exporters to their foreign contractors not to transfer funds to Russia."

LukOil's "modest" headquarters

For this reason, the Government feels that control over return of the earnings to Russia is necessary. The TsB, the VEK and the GTK have been instructed to think about how to do this.

The basic direction has already been proclaimed, however: oblige the exporters to sell 75 percent (and not 50 percent, as before) of their currency earnings on the domestic market, as well as to reduce the time-limits for their return (up until now, a gap of 180 days was permitted between the supply of the goods and the payment for them).

Ye. Primakov reminded them: a delay in payments and an understatement of the total currency earnings will cost the violators 200-300 percent of the earnings themselves. The measures of which we are speaking are not merely timely actions by the state, but part of the government program for a way out of the crisis.

There is so far no talk about returning the "fugitive" capital to Russia. But it would be worthwhile to keep the money which is still here (the so-called "flying" capital). Strict administrative regulation, in the opinion of Leonik Abalkin, director of the RAN [Russian Academy of Sciences] Institute of Economics, will not help in this matter. "Gaps" can always be found in any law, even the strictest one: despite any obstacles, there are still more than enough ways to take money abroad -- including fully legal ones, such as, for example, offshore business.

In addition, capital can flee the country without every crossing its borders: this is precisely what happens in the dollarization of the economy, when the population begins actively ridding itself of ruble cash, using it to buy up foreign currency. According to the data of the RAN Institute of Economics, the amount of cash dollars (the population has $30 billion "in stockings," plus about another one-and-a-half dozen billion in turnover in "shuttle" trade) in September considerably exceeded the amount of the ruble money supply (approximately 180 billion rubles or, at the exchange rate at that time, $10-18 billion).

According to the estimates of economists, over 40 percent of the country"s monetary flow right now is in foreign currency and, therefore, not under the control of the Central Bank. The procedure for the obligatory sale of currency by exporters is stiffening very little. This must be done, but it is hardly the first thing to do. First, we must think about stabilizing the economy and about how -- at least partially -- to restore the investor"s confidence in the ruble. The first step here, obviously, should be a clear and precise government program. Which we are anxiously awaiting.

Business Week, September 13, 1999

Commentary: The Tidal Wave of Cash Gushing Out of Russia

By Patricia Kranz and Margaret Coker

The Russian money-laundering scandal is grabbing headlines around the world. That's no surprise, since it has all the elements of a juicy story: money, drugs, and sex.

Investigators in Britain and the U.S. believe the Russian mafia has used the Bank of New York to smuggle as much as $10 billion out of Russia. Some of the laundered money comes from proceeds of activities such as contract murders, narcotics trafficking, and possibly prostitution, investigators say.

It's horrible publicity for the Bank of New York. But $10 billion is only a tiny drop in the tidal wave of capital that has gushed out of Russia in recent years. Fitch IBCA, a London-based credit-ratings agency, estimates that $136 billion was taken out of Russia from 1993 through 1998. Moscow-based Troika Dialog investment bank calculates that the total could be as high as $500 billion in those six years. So even a thorough and successful investigation of the Bank of New York--or any other bank that has actively courted Russian business--is unlikely to make much difference. The powerful money flows will continue until there are drastic changes in Russia.

DEVILISH DEAL

There's little hope of that anytime soon. Russian politicians are gearing up for parliamentary elections this December and presidential elections next July. They don't want to rock the boat by making any major changes. That poses a big challenge for policymakers in the West. They've known about Russian capital flight for years. They even abetted it by looking the other way when billions of dollars of aid money disappeared into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen. But they thought they were doing the right thing by supporting Yeltsin as he fought off Communist challenges. And they wanted to prevent chaos in a nuclear power.

Now, the money-laundering scandal is shining a harsh spotlight on their Faustian bargain. The fact is that Russian-style capitalism and capital flight go hand in hand. Members of the resource-rich country's business and political elite are stripping Russia of its assets, from oil to aluminum to furs. Over the years, they've perfected a myriad of ways to get cash out of the country, from carrying it out in suitcases to setting up elaborate networks of shell companies and bank accounts. Even ordinary Russians find ways to set up bank accounts when they vacation abroad.

Why does everyone from government officials to street cleaners want to get their money out? The reasons are political and financial and entirely logical. Russians have a legitimate basis for not trusting their politicians. They lost their savings in 1992 when Boris N. Yeltsin's economic reforms sparked soaring inflation. Last year, the central bank promised to reimburse depositors for money they lost when banks collapsed in August. Most are still waiting.

Businesspeople turn to offshore banking as a way to contain the risk in an economy where the banks are unsound and corruption is fierce. But it's also often a way to limit payments to the Russian tax man. That's why experts believe that the majority of the capital that flows out of Russia comes from companies or individuals engaged in normal economic activity, from selling oil to hamburgers. But the machinations they go through to get the money out are certainly questionable--and bend if not break Russian or overseas laws.

Examples abound. For years, foreign investors have accused managers of Russia's oil and metals companies of cheating shareholders by selling commodities on world markets and parking the proceeds offshore. In another scheme, Russian managers set up an offshore shell company, using it to bill Russian customers for goods to be imported. The customers prepay with a wire transfer to the offshore company. But the goods are never shipped, and the money is left outside Russia.

What could stop the cascade of capital? Probably only decades of thorough economic, political, and legal reforms. The Clinton Administration and the International Monetary Fund should admit this. It's time to tell the Russians: "No reforms, no money." Or at least the Administration should be perfectly up front about policy goals in Russia. If the West is willing to pour money into Russia because it wants to preserve stability in a country full of nuclear weapons, just say so. It's time to stop pretending