Russia wants shops to stop discriminating against its battered currency and accept rubles in exchange for goods, a senior central banker said Thursday.


"The Central Bank is now preparing documents making it obligatory for all shops to trade for rubles as well as for hard currency", Izvestia quoted the Central Bank deputy governor, Dmitry Tulin, as saying. "The ruble will have equal rights with foreign currencies".


The paper said Tulin expected the new rules to be approved within the next two weeks.


Hard currency shops, selling Western goods for Western cash, have been springing up in Moscow and some other cities for several years, offering goods unavailable, in most Russian shops.


A few hard-currency shops now accept rubles in payment but most refuse to accept the currency, which has plunged against the dollar in recent months.


Some only accept payment with credit cards, a form of financial discrimination which keeps the queues down but excludes all but the richest Russians.


Roger Torriani, food manager for Sadko, said rumors of such a law have been circulating for several weeks. He said the company was not looking forward to such a regulation, not with the banking system in the shape it is in.


"Almost an our goods are imported from Western Europe, and it will be very hard to change rubles into dollars to pay for them", Torriani said. "The ruble must first be convertible at the bank, otherwise there is no further business. How will we pay our suppliers with rubles? "


Izvestia's report comes three weeks after President Boris Yeltsin said he would ban the dollar in an effort to prop up the sagging ruble and appease his opposition in parliament.


Government officials later backed away from the statement and said such a ban would only be possible sometime in 1993.


Tulin said shops would be free to decide what exchange rate to use for the ruble.


"One can expect that this rate will not be advantageous for ruble holders, since trade organizations will fry to compensate for the risk of operating with the ruble", Izvestia said.


"Maybe some shops will set artificially high rates to get rid of ruble shoppers".


The ruble has been falling steadily on the Interbank Currency Exchange this year, and it slipped to a new record low of 398 rubles per dollar Thursday.


The minimum monthly wage of 2, 200 rubles is now equivalent to about $5. 50. A loaf of bread costs 20 rubles in state stores.


Izvestia said fear of rising political instability in Russia was behind the ruble's fall. It traded at about 240 to the dollar a month ago and at around 165 in August.


Twice-weekly exchange sessions give banks and companies a limited opportunity to buy and sell dollars. The rate set at the exchange also provides a benchmark for the Central Bank.