N e w s

The gold extraction in Russia totaled about 130 thousand tones and that compared to 1998 is higher by 6.3%; at that, compared to 1993 the volume of extraction decreased by 28 tones. It was informed by Mr. Sergey Kashtymov, the deputy director of the Department of Foreign operations in the Central Bank of Russia, today at the press-conference "Gold-2000".

He pointed to the growth of commercial banks activity in this field, stressing that only 5 banks had the licenses to run the operations with precious metals in 1996 and now their number increased to 154. At that, paying attention to the stability in relations between the commercial banks and bosom users, Mr. Kashtymov said that during the last two years about 90 tones of gold was extracted with a participation of banks.

In his speech Mr. Kashtymov declared that it is necessary to make some arrangements for the further development of the gold extracting field. Among them are: decrease in the taxation of bosom users to 25-30%; adaptation of SRP in the field and creation of customs-free warehouse on the territory of Russia.

Also Mr. Kashtymov stressed the need for the change of the legislative base. Particularly, in the law "About the precious metals", according to Mr. S. Kashtymov, the norm, regulating the option of obtaining the precious metals to State Fund, should be clearly specified. The Central Bank offers to set the period of validity for this option before the 1st of December, when, currently, in some cases the State Fund does not reply untill April, the end of extraction season. Besides, the terms of export for the precious metals should be specified as well as the article on the creation of the Precious Metals Exchange.

According to the opinion of Central Bank, which was supported by the most participants of the conference, in the law "About the Currency regulation and control" it is necessary to exclude the precious metals out of currency values. Mr. Kashtymov stressed that all over the world gold is considered as commodity, but not the currency value, and the fact that there is another position in our legislation in this respect, considerably limits the opportunities of working on the Gold market.

Source: AK&M