Russia's Natural Resource Minister has said that the he has no plans to restrict access to the country's pgm reserves, at least for the time being.

Yury Trutnev made the announcement having submitted proposals that would see more copper and gold fields declared as strategic.

Despite the move, no platinum reserves were included in the proposals.

"The Russian Natural Resources Ministry is not for the time being planning to restrict access by foreigners to nickel and platinum-group metal fields," the minister told information agency Interfax.

Yet although he said that reserves of platinum were not going to be declared as strategic at the current time, he did admit that it was a possibility in the future.

"The ministry is not yet planning to submit criteria to the government to categorize these fields as strategic. For the time being we're not submitting or planning to submit such proposals, although we are considering this, in particular for nickel, platinum and other minerals," he added.

Russia is one of the world's main sources of platinum and pgms.

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