The lower house of the parliament, the State Duma, passed in first reading Wednesday a bill that would force all officials to use the ruble as the sole currency for economic measures.
"This issue is absolutely unreasonable and absolutely absurd in its current form," Alexei Kudrin said.
Kudrin said that customs statistics and duties in Russia had been fixed in euros, and Russia also had its foreign debt counted in foreign currency.
"If I try to quote the world's debt market in rubles, it would be technically and practically impossible considering all [exchange] fluctuations of the ruble to world currencies," Kudrin said.
Kudrin's comments echoed those made Wednesday by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, who said he did not quite understand the purpose or meaning of this legislative initiative.
He said he understood why prices for goods in Russia should be set in rubles, but added: "I don't understand why prices for goods sold abroad must not be quoted in dollars."
The bill was proposed by Yevgeny Velikhov, the head of the Russian Public Chamber, a new body set up to act as a bridge between the pubic and the authorities, and was later backed by the pro-presidential United Russia faction.
