Officials of Rosugol, the state coal concern, painted a brighter economic picture for the company Wednesday but said coal miners will still participate in a nationwide protest action Thursday.


Yury Malyshev, Rosugol's president, told a news conference that the improvement stems from government moves to pay 7 trillion rubles ($2.3 billion) in debts to the coal industry by the end of the year. The remaining 740 billion rubles are scheduled to be paid as part of next year's allocation, he said.


Valery Butko, chairman of the Russian coal-miners' trade union, said that although the trade union was satisfied with the results of negotiations with the government, coal miners would still take part in the nationwide demonstration, organized by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, to protest lack of government payments to industries.


"We fully agree with FITU's slogans," Butko said. "And our colleagues in the regions will take part in the action. But since the government satisfied our demands, we decided to cancel White House picketing," which had been scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday.


According to government sources, the state now owes 4.2 trillion rubles to industries, which in turn are unable to pay their workers.


Although the unions have been careful to say the action is not a strike, they expect about 25,000 workers to participate in marches and demonstrations in Moscow alone. Similar protests are scheduled throughout the country.


Malyshev said that the coal industry had already received 500 billion rubles in fixed yield treasury bonds and 500 billion rubles in cash from the government.


Malyshev also said stabilization in the economy allowed the metallurgical industry to pay all of its September bills to Rosugol for the first time in two years, in addition to partial payment of July and August debts.


"Real demand for coal appeared," Malyshev added.


He said that although he expected Rosugol to produce only 95 percent of last year's amount of coal, it would increase exports to 15 million tons this year and would soon reach 30 million tons in annual shipments, recovering from a big dip in 1992.


As one of the examples of the coal industry revival, Malyshev cited the Obukhovskaya-1 mine in the Rostov region, which has projected high-quality coal deposits of more than 1.5 billion tons. He said that he had great hopes for the mine because of its favorable geographic location near Europe and the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk.


"You should have seen how miners' eyes shone when they learned that there will be a new mine in their region," Malyshev said. "They understand that while other mines are being closed down, this one could give them jobs." Malyshev said that Rosugol had closed down eight mines this year.


He said it would be necessary to invest 300 billion rubles to build the mine over the next four years and that the government would fund 50 percent of the project. Other possible investors included Russia's biggest oil producer, LUKoil, and foreign companies currently holding talks with Rosugol. He declined to name the companies.