The Ukraine's fledgling national bank, pushing ahead with plans to introduce a national currency, has signed a contract in Canada to print banknotes, a senior bank official said Wednesday.
Deputy bank director Alexander Savchenko said that the contract was signed three days ago and the name of the new Ukrainian currency would be fixed soon.He gave no details of the contract but said it would enable the Ukraine to take out of circulation existing Soviet rubles and Ukrainian consumer coupons by mid-1992.
Savchenko said the decision to introduce a national currency to replace the collapsing ruble had been delayed by pressure from Moscow but was now likely to go ahead because the Russian government was also planning its own money.
He said the Ukraine faced a serious shortage of deliveries of banknotes from the three Soviet factories which print them.
He said the lack of notes would make it difficult to pay wages in December. Virtually all Soviet workers get their wages in cash, leading to a massive demand for notes at a time of spiraling inflation.
The coupon system, introduced to protect local consumers' supplies of food and staple goods, will be extended as a parallel currency as a stopgap measure, Savchenko said.