Andrei Kozlov said the CB would exclude residents' indirect stakes held through foreign companies to calculate the foreign holdings. He said foreign stakes came to 11.95% under the old method, and about 10.5% under the new rule, as of April 1, 2006.
A senior official from the Central Bank's department for international financial relations said Russia was insisting on definite quotas for foreign participation in Russian banks' aggregate capital at talks on the country's accession to the World Trade Organization.
Larisa Moskovkina said the quota had been set at 25% at the initial stage of negotiations, but was eventually raised to 50%.
Moskovkina said the requirement was not included in legislation, but that Russian law provided for the possibility and the Central Bank kept the process under its control.
Kozlov said that a quota was necessary for Russia, but that the Central Bank had not yet decided on the quota size.
