U.S. Urges New Russian Aid on Reluctant Allies : Economics: Officials warn that a $40-billion package may not be finished at Tokyo meeting of top industrialized nations.

TOKYO — The United States asked its major economic allies Wednesday to promise new increases in aid to Russia, but there were signs that pledges were not coming as easily as the Clinton Administration hoped.

Top officials from the seven biggest industrial powers worked into the night to complete a multinational aid package that could approach $40 billion, but U.S. officials began to warn that the plan might not be finished at this week’s meeting of foreign and finance ministers.

“We won’t be able to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t,’ ” said a Treasury official, suggesting that some decisions would be put off for several weeks or more.

At the same time, several countries, including wealthy but recession-pressed Germany, turned aside the U.S. request for more money. German Finance Minister Theo Waigel, asked what new aid his country was willing to promise for Russia, bluntly replied: “None.

“We are ready to support more aid from the international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,” Waigel said. But as for direct aid from the German government, “we have reached our limit,’ he said.

A shortfall in aid pledges could have significant political consequences for Russia and the West. This week’s unusual meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and their foreign counterparts was intended to produce a list of aid big enough--and concrete enough--to impress cynical Russians, who will vote in 10 days in a referendum on their country’s future.

There have been some results. Japan announced that it will offer $1.8 billion in aid to Russia, a huge increase over previous levels. And President Clinton was putting the finishing touches on an aid proposal for the federal budget year that begins Oct. 1, reportedly also in the range of $1.8 billion--on top of this year’s pledge of $1.6 billion, offered just last week.

But U.S. officials had hoped this week’s meeting would produce a list of aid commitments from all the countries in the Group of Seven--the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Canada. Three of the countries--Germany, France and Italy--have not pledged yet.

Germany, which has given more than half of the worldwide total of about $80 billion in aid to Russia since 1989, has often complained that its share of the burden has been disproportionate.

Even as the aides to the foreign and finance ministers worked into the morning today on the details of the multinational aid package, an outline emerged. As described by Waigel, who said he was offering only approximate figures, the plan would include:

* $3 billion in credits that the IMF would make available to Russia almost immediately, primarily to cover the cost of importing necessary goods and equipment from the West and Japan. This money would be offered without requiring Russia to take specific steps to stabilize its economy, other than to demonstrate some measures to control inflation--which in recent months has neared 30% but dropped to 17% in March.

* $4 billion in additional IMF credits that would be made available to Russia in a piecemeal fashion as Moscow institutes real economic reform. This step-by-step program represents a relaxation of the fund’s usual insistence that full reform be established before any money is transferred.

* $6 billion in a fund to help stabilize the ruble. This would be a renewal of a central element in the international plan that the George Bush Administration presented a year ago to funnel $24 billion in aid to Russia, much of which has not been made available because of the slow pace of economic reform there.

* $1 billion from the World Bank for economic development projects.

* Up to $10 billion in bilateral aid from individual countries, most of it in the form of export credits--loans to finance Russian purchases of goods from the countries that extend the aid.

* $15 billion in already announced debt rescheduling, to help Moscow get out from under the crushing burden of paying back the $80-billion foreign debt it inherited from the defunct Soviet Union.

That adds up to $39 billion, but Waigel and other top officials said it would be deceptive to rely on that total because it mixes different types of aid--grants, loans and debt relief--that do not have comparable dollar values.

At the same time as they worked on the international plan, the ministers were presented with a separate U.S.-led effort to commit $4 billion for a privatization fund to help large state industries, which once took orders directly from the former Communist government, convert to privately led, profit-making enterprises operating under the laws of supply and demand.

Under the Clinton Administration plan, the United States would contribute $500 million, other nations would add $1.5 billion and the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development would contribute $2 billion.

A senior U.S. official said the fund was designed in response to suggestions from Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and his deputy prime minister for finance, Boris G. Fyodorov. The Russians noted that a major worry among their compatriots is that the huge state industries employing hundreds of thousands of workers--and often dominating the economies of smaller cities--could collapse in the face of economic reforms.

“This program is targeted at firms with 1,000 or more employees . . . to try to respond to that perceived problem,” the official said.

He said the Administration also hopes the unusual structure of the program--with the U.S. contribution seen as “seed money” to prompt similar contributions from Japan, Germany and other countries--might become a pattern for further joint aid packages.

“The United States can’t carry the whole burden on these things, and we have to find new ways to share the job,” he said.

The Administration is also asking the other industrial powers to contribute to a multinational project to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union. The project is built on an $800-million fund already earmarked for that purpose in the U.S. Defense Department budget.

Development of the aid plan has grown more urgent over the past two months as the Group of Seven members came to see it as their biggest possible contribution to helping Yeltsin emerge successfully from the April 25 vote in Russia that amounts to a vote of confidence on him and his policies.

Yeltsin said Wednesday that if less than half of the voters express confidence in his presidency and if voters decline to set early elections for his opponents in Russia’s Parliament, he would resign. The leaders at the conference here fear that whoever replaces him would be likely to step back from his policy of political and economic reform.

Times staff writer Sam Jameson contributed to this report.