President Boris Yeltsin has signed a decree that widens the uses of privatization vouchers, but stops short of allowing their unrestricted use for the purchase of land.


The decree allows voucher holders to invest in state-owned housing and municipal property, but limits the purchase of land to plots beneath privatized enterprises.


The restriction disappointed hopes, raised by the government, that the decree would provide a breakthrough in land privatization.


Russian lawmakers have not yet passed laws allowing the sale of land to individuals for personal use. Instead, parliament seems intent on keeping most land in state-owned hands. In April legislators passed a 10-year moratorium on private land sales.


Earlier this month, Yeltsin authorized an experimental auction of land in a Moscow suburb that seemed to be aimed at ultimately reversing that decision.


"The people are waiting to be allowed the use of privatization vouchers for purchasing plots of land and dwellings", Yeltsin said in an Oct. 6 speech to legislators.


For the last month, Russian government privatization officials have indicated that Wednesday's decree would allow the sale of land to citizens for the building of private housing. This precedent-breaking step was thought necessary to keep people who had no interest in investing in large enterprises from exchanging their vouchers for cash.


But after taking heavy criticism in parliamentary debates on its privatization program, the government apparently decided not to propose unrestricted land sale.


"If a draft decree permitting the purchase of land lots for privatization vouchers is submitted to the Supreme Soviet, it will be completely rejected", Vyacheslav Prokhorov, head of the Russian government's department of property management and enterprises, said Tuesday.