Vladimir Putin demands introduction of single Russian-Belarussian currency be settled

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed to the need to settle the issue of introducing a single currency of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

A few days ago the President talked to his Belarussian counterpart, he said at the Monday session with the government in the Kremlin. The two leaders agreed to fix a meeting to finally settle the issue of the single currency.

"We have reached the point where we have to take the final decision," the Russian President said. The meeting of the two presidents will be scheduled after the session of the Russian-Belarussian working group on the single currency introduction in Moscow today, Putin said.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin announced at the session that the basic variant of the agreement on currency introduction had already been coordinated.

The single currency of the Union State of Russia and Belarus at first was to be introduced in January 2005, but later Vladimir Putin proposed to introduce it already in January 2004.