Vladimir Putin Soothes Fears Over Currency Reserves (no intention of infiltrating Western economies)

Source: Times Online UK

Russia has no intention of using its huge currency reserves to infiltrate Western economies or to invest improperly in Western equities, President Putin has told American and European Russia-watchers.

He said that Moscow would use its vast gold and foreign currency surpluses to rebuild Russia’s roads, ports, railways and infrastructure, to construct energy pipelines, raise pensions and give a vital economic boost to small business.

Western governments have become increasingly nervous that Russia will use its huge reserves, now the third-largest in the world after Japan and China, to buy up strategic Western assets such as aerospace industries and energy companies and run these in its own national interest. Last month Germany said that it would draft a law to protect its companies from being taken over by foreign funds, especially state-owned funds in Russia, China and the Middle East.

Mr Putin denounced such moves, saying that if the West wanted to invest in Russia, it should, in turn, allow Russia to enter the West’s markets without discrimination. He scorned the inclusion of the CIA in a panel recently set up by President Bush to look at the source and security of foreign sovereign fund investments. “I told President Bush that I have a track record in the KGB and that after some years there is a shift in mentality so that you start looking for spies under the bed,” Mr Putin said.

There was no need to include the CIA in any vetting of investments: they had only one task and that was to catch and deter offenders, not to act as economic advisers, he said.



Read more: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/russia/article2563096.ece

Oh well.

The CIA has always been about economic spying. Why does he think the CIA went around the Middle East, South America, Asia installing governments friendly to big American business? The CIA has never been about spying on the Russians (thats why we had the DIA and NSA). The CIA is all about money.

OOpps, I guess they're only for that when it comes to destroying American workers wages and benefits. Outside of that, maybe it's not such a good idea....

COurse the whole discussion brings us back to China, who no longer need the A-bomb. They own so many US dollars, that if they sold them all tomorrow, they'd flood the market, the dollar would tank, and it would be us riding rickshaws through town.

Wow! Now doesn't that feel just great!