The Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, has rejected a forecast by the International Monetary Fund which says the Russian economy will shrink by more than eight percent next year and suffer from high inflation.

The IMF has warned that the government's draft budget is unrealistic and will result in a serious revenue shortfall.

Parliament is expected to pass the budget without much resistance now that the Communist leader, Gennadiy Zyuganov, has said he'll support it.

Meanwhile, the First Deputy Prime Minister, Yuriy Maslyukov, has said that Russia's difficulties in meeting its foreign debt repayments should not be over-dramatised.

Russia has asked for a restructuring of its payments to Western commercial banks, which the banks have yet to approve.