Russia, one of the world's top forex reserves holders, is close to a long-term financing deal with Cyprus and is not holding bilateral talks about financial aid to any other euro zone country, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Reuters.
Kudrin told the Reuters Russia Investment Summit the country, which has over $540 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves, could invest in a common euro zone bond if one was approved by member states but would also continue investing in sovereign bonds.
"As soon as you see our gold and forex reserves rising by $10 billion, you can assume that $4.5 billion is invested in euro zone countries’ bonds," Kudrin told the summit, held at the Reuters office in Moscow.
"We are ready to discuss new mechanisms of support for the euro zone… We always diversify our investments. We would be ready to invest some money through a common bond but will also continue working through sovereign (bonds)," he said.
Kudrin added Moscow was not holding any bilateral talks with euro zone countries apart from Cyprus.
"Italy has not approached us. Euro zone countries have not approached us in general… At the moment we are holding talks only with Cyprus. We have good progress at talks. They will conclude within one month," he added.
He declined to give other details. His comments follow a Financial Times report that Rome had asked China to buy "significant" quantities of its debt and an Italian bond auction that underlined mounting fears over the currency bloc’s third largest economy.
Cyprus has close business and political ties with Russia. The island is home to hundreds of Russian businesses and its leader, President Demetris Christofias, is a fluent Russian speaker who was educated in Soviet Russia.
Cyprus has around 1 billion euros in debt maturing in early 2012 and Cypriot newspapers have reported the republic was in talks for a five-year loan either from or through the Russian government for between 2.0 and 2.5 billion euros.
