An ambitious government plan to privatize the Russian economy is making progress, with the sale of nearly half of the country's 176,881 state businesses since late 1992, officials said Wednesday.
The value of vouchers issued to nearly all of Russia's 150 million citizens to allow them to purchase shares in the state-owned enterprises has soared as the privatization program has taken off, dealers say.President Boris Yeltsin's government is selling the businesses to transform Russia from the old Soviet state-run economy to a free-market system. As of Nov. 1, 81,272 enterprises had been auctioned, of which about 22,000 were partly sold for vouchers, said Lev Tsvetkov of the State Property Committee.
"The market in vouchers is dynamic due to ongoing privatization, which entrepreneurs now consider irreversible," trading expert Gennady Nosov said.
Each Russian citizen was eligible for a single 10,000-ruble voucher last year to bid for shares in state-owned companies, to invest in mutual funds or to sell for cash. While small firms, such as shops, are auctioned for cash, larger enterprises are auctioned for cash and vouchers.
The voucher program, scheduled to expire by Dec. 31, has been extended until next July to let more people participate.
The market value of vouchers, quoted at $5 last spring, has risen dramatically over the past month in trading as more large enterprises are put up for voucher auctions.
On Tuesday, the voucher closed at 31,166 rubles ($26.50) at the Russian Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, the largest dealer in privatization vouchers.
The pace of auctioning has jumped since Yeltsin ousted the Soviet-era legislature, which opposed his economic reforms.
State Property Committee officials say most Russian industry ultimately will be privatized, with the exception of some military and high-technology plants the government has chosen to retain for security reasons.
Nearly 500,000 vouchers were sold Tuesday for 14.3 billion rubles ($12 million) - a one-day record for the exchange, Nosov said.
The value of the vouchers is also soaring because of the growing number of lucrative, large companies going private, he said.
The most recent example is west Siberia's Yuganskneftegaz oil company, in which the public will bid on 12 percent of the stock with vouchers.
In addition to oil companies, several automakers will offer their shares at auctions in the next few months, including the GAZ automobile works in Nizhny Novgorod and the Moskvich automobile works in Moscow.