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MOSCOW, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian currency will be officially convertible from July 1, but it will take more than a year for the ruble to become convertible in practice, the economy minister said Tuesday.

In his state of the nation address May 10, President Vladimir Putin said work on making the national currency fully convertible should be completed by July 1, almost six months ahead of the original deadline of January 1, 2007.

"The currency will become convertible de jure from July 1," Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Tuesday.

But, he said, "we will need more than a year to achieve stability for the national currency and to lower inflation to at least 3%," Gref said.

He said demand for the Russian ruble depended on the stability of the Russian economy and the national currency, as well as on the confidence of foreign investors in the Russian economy.

Gref added that Russia needed international trading floors, including an oil stock exchange, and that it needed to attract countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States to place their resources on these floors.

"This is the road we still have to go down," Gref said.