July 17, 2006

To make the exchange-based euro market more attractive, the MICEX has put into effect, as of 17 July 2006, amendments to the Rules of Sale and Purchase of Foreign Currency in the Unified Trading Session of Inter-Bank Currency Exchanges, which extend the time of trading in the euro with ⌠tomorrow■ delivery by 3 hours. Now the trading session ends at 17:00, Moscow time (it ended at 14:00 before). Thus, the Rules establish the same time of trading in instruments EUR/RUB_UTS_TOM and USD/RUB_UTS_TOM.

After consultations with participants in the currency market and regional currency exchanges the amendments to the Rules were adopted by the MICEX Board and approved by the Bank of Russia.

Developing its exchange rate policy, in 2005 the Bank of Russia adopted a specialized operational benchmark, the bi-currency basket, comprised of two currencies: the US dollar and the euro. Last year the share of the euro in the bi-currency basket was constantly growing (on 1 February 2005 the euro accounted for 10% of the basket while the US dollar accounted for 90%; beginning from 2 December 2005: the euro √ 40%, the US dollar — 60%), which, considering the structure of Russia▓s foreign trade turnover in 2005, caused the increase of interest in the euro. At the same time, the terms of trading in the US dollar and the euro were different, so, in order to raise the attractiveness of the exchange-based euro market and increase its liquidity, the MICEX decided to take measures to improve the existing terms of trading in this segment.

To this day, trading in USD/RUB_UTS_TOM ended at 17:00, while trading in EUR/RUB_UTS_TOM ended at 14:00, which limited the attractiveness of the EUR/RUB segment, as in the period from 14:00 till 17:00 participants were unable to effectively react to changes in the EUR/USD market. To remove this limitation, the MICEX decided to extend the time of trading in instrument EUR/RUB_UTS_TOM till 17:00, Moscow time.

The new schedule of trading in the euro in the UTS:

Instrument	Trading time
EUR/RUB_UTS_TOD	from 10:00 till 11:30
EUR/RUB_UTS_TOM	from 10:00 till 17:00
SWAP_EUR/RUB_UTS_TOD_TOM	from 10:00 till 11:30

In view of the above, the MICEX has adopted certain amendments to the Rules of Sale and Purchase of Foreign Currency in the Unified Trading Session of Inter-Bank Currency Exchanges and the Rules of Sale and Purchase of Foreign Currency on the MICEX.