Monitoring of the Federal Legislation dated 10.08.2004

Direction of the Central Bank of Russia No. 1482-U of July 28, 2004 on the List of Securities Included in the Lombard List of the Bank of Russia

The Lombard List of the Bank of Russia is extended to include the bonds of mortgage agencies secured with state guarantees of the Russian Federation, bonds of the subjects of the Russian Federation issued in compliance with the Federal Law on the particulars of issue and circulation of the state and municipal securities, as well as the bonds of credit organisations (bonds with mortgage coverage or bonds with the volume of issue not greater than the claims volume of credit organisations under credit contracts with mortgage backing) secured with state guarantees of the subjects of the Russian Federation.

The mentioned bonds of the subjects of the Russian Federation and credit organisations must meet the following criteria: issuer rating according to the international scale in foreign currency must be at least BB according to the classification of the rating agencies of Standard & Poor`s or Fitch Ratings, or Ba2 according to the Moody`s classification.

The Direction is entered into force 10 days after the day of its official publication in the Herald of the Bank of Russia.

Order of the Ministry of Taxation of the Russian Federation No. SAE-3-03/449@ of July 29, 2004 on the Amendments to the Order of the Ministry of Taxation of Russia No. BG-3-03/25 of January 21, 2002 on the Endorsement of the Instruction on the Filling of the Declarations for the Value Added Tax

The amendments are introduced pursuant to the Decision of the Higher Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation of June 15, 2004 on the case No. 4052/04 having recognised as invalid and not complying with the Tax Code of the Russian Federation Paragraphs 23 and 26 of Section 2.1 "Calculation of the Total Amount of the Tax" of the Instruction on the filling of the declaration for the value added tax for operations subject to the zero percent rate. The mentioned paragraphs are omitted, since the Tax Code of the Russian Federation does not specify the duty of the taxpayer to restore VAT amounts in the tax declaration and pay them to the budget for the property earlier purchased by the taxpayer for operations subject to VAT and handed over later as a contribution to the registered (shared) capital of economic companies and partnerships or handed over to the successor(s) when reorganised.

Registered in the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on August 5, 2004. Reg. No. 5961.