Chapter 13 Crazy Arbitrage

In the Soviet Union, the Central Bank, the Savings Bank, the Construction Bank, and the Foreign Trade Bank each performed their duties and firmly controlled the country's financial lifeline. As the name suggests, a savings bank is naturally a bank that specializes in absorbing deposits from ordinary people and dealing with ordinary people. The Construction Bank is mainly a financial institution that provides investment for industrial and mining enterprises in the Soviet Union, various large-scale public projects, and some livelihood facilities. As for the central bank, it coordinates the corporate books of all enterprises in the country. When an enterprise sells goods to another domestic enterprise, the central bank only needs to modify the amount of funds in the accounts of the two enterprises. This is the characteristic of the planned economy, in which the two companies will not see any cash. Because in the Soviet Union, cash only had several fixed uses, such as paying workers' wages and so on.

The Foreign Trade Bank controlled by Sergei Sharif manages all the foreign trade funds of the Soviet Union. No matter which enterprise in the Soviet Union exported goods abroad, the payee would always be the Foreign Trade Bank. The foreign trade bank will turn over the received foreign exchange to the central bank on a quarterly basis, and then modify the funds on the accounts of export enterprises according to the official exchange rate. After the enterprise has made a profit, since the money only exists in the accounts of the central bank, it can neither Bonuses to workers cannot be used for other purposes, only to purchase raw materials or equipment for expanded reproduction.

With regard to the long-term problem of the lack of cash on the enterprise side, Seryozha was also helpless. However, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation has a little bit of help for these companies, that is, the goods exchanged by Seriosha's Mediterranean Trading Company from abroad will not be turned over to the state treasury, but sold to some domestic supply and marketing companies. Of course, Seryozha can also reward some imported goods to large income-generating households such as the Volga Automobile Factory. As a result, a large amount of profits appeared on the domestic business books of the Mediterranean Trading Company under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. These profits were originally just a number on the account books. In the past, they could only be exchanged for petroleum, electrolytic aluminum and other bulk items and exported to Glencore. But now, because of Yeltsin's disruption, Seryosha is expected to turn these figures into real cash that can be spent.

After getting the approval of the government, Seriosha quickly contacted Switzerland to provide corresponding funds for Yeltsin. Seryozha's Colombian bank obliged to assume the loan. About 500 million U.S. dollars soon came to the account of the Foreign Trade Bank. So far, this is the first step in Seryozha's funding plan. Seryozha then needs to convert the money into rubles at the official price. According to the official exchange rate, this fund will probably become more than 600 million rubles. This money is used by Yeltsin to pay the various construction teams of Workers' New City and some supporting construction parties. It belongs to the category of wages. Liao Sha's second part is planned.

Seryozha's Foreign Trade Bank has a large amount of foreign exchange reserves, and with this part of ruble cash, it can be reversely converted into US dollars according to the official exchange rate. In other words, Seryozha can get back his original 500 million US dollars at any time. Because it's a cash exchange, the dollars that these pairs exchange for are also cash. Due to the serious inflation in the Soviet Union, these dollars can be exchanged for more rubles on the black market than in state-owned banks. It can be exchanged for more US dollars at the official price. This is a lucrative snowball business, because of the huge exchange rate difference between private and state-owned banks. This kind of thing is no secret at all in the Moscow bureaucracy. Many cadres who often go abroad for business work know how to exchange their inexhaustible foreign exchange on the black market. But there are only a few officials like Seryozha who have the conditions to engage in large-scale arbitrage.

Xie Liaosha is familiar with this matter, because it is somewhat similar to the previous head account behavior. But the difference is that Seryozha is the supervisor,

He can guard himself without any risk. In order to extract more funds as soon as possible, Xie Liaosha summoned those trustworthy hardcore subordinates within the Communist Youth League, as well as those businessmen who had the courage to pioneer and active thinking in the Youth Science and Technology Cultural Center. For example, Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, and Shenko at the end of the season all acted quickly.

Seryozha handed over business in the Leningrad region to Khodorkovsky, and Moscow was Berezovsky's territory. At the end of the season, Shenko was promoted to one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Youth League Committee, so his business will spread throughout Ukraine. Seryozha even dragged Goldman, Minin, and Nastya into the water. In the past few years, young people in the Youth Science and Technology Cultural Center have made a lot of money, which has caused many cadres who were originally keen on official careers to turn their attention to the business field. What Seryozha did was not illegal, and because of the existence of the Youth Science and Technology Cultural Center, the Communist Youth League has unique business conditions.

As for Yeltsin, because he doesn't know much about finance, he can only rely on the residential utility bank led by Sobchak to help him manage the funds of the workers' new city. Seryozha greeted Sobchak, and Sobchak would naturally cooperate with Seryozha. In this way, relying on his disciples and the relationship network he had established for many years, Serezha was finally able to implement this series of plans safely and smoothly.

After Khodorkovsky and others got the U.S. dollars, they soon discovered that the money was really easy to earn. Since Seryozha only wanted U.S. dollars and was not interested in rubles, Khodorkovsky was extra careful. He found some people who planned to leave the Soviet Union to immigrate abroad, bought their jewelry, real estate and cars at very low prices, and then sold them. In this way, although it is a little more troublesome, he can get more profits.

Under the pretense of going to foreign automobile production lines for the Volga Automobile Factory, Serezha successively asked the Foreign Trade Bank to advance some deposits. The payees are all affiliated companies registered by Serge Sha. Because the purchase is engineering equipment and other things, there is a certain time difference in delivery. After all, the automobile production line cannot be produced quickly. Sergey planned to reserve funds for his Japan plan, and the new production line purchase contract would be canceled immediately after Sergey ran out of the money, and Sergey would naturally send the money back to the Soviet Union.