Spot platinum dipped $3 from its New York close to $437/$442 on the release of the news, but quickly recovered to $441.50/$446.50. A bill passed at the third and final reading in Russia's state Duma lower house of parliament on Wednesday amended a law of December 1998 which had effectively stopped exports as loose wording had made it impossible to identify an agent authorised to carry out exports.

"It was no surprise and the reaction in the price says it all," a London dealer said. "It's hard to filter the truth from the official statements and I'm hearing there's a lot more paper business to sort out before any metal actually appears on the market," he added.

Metal expected early next year
Analysts said they expected metal to appear early next year, and predicted that prices would move sharply lower at that point. "I would expect heavy selling and fund liquidation in the medium term, there is underlying tightness and good demand for platinum at the moment," an analyst at HSBC in London said.

"People are jaded because this is a situation which has been repeated over the past couple of years, but that's not to say this isn't a big development," another London-based platinum group metals analyst said.The bill must still be approved by the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and then signed by president Boris Yeltsin. Assuming Yeltsin signs the bill, he will still have to issue quotas before exports can begin, and the trade ministry will have to issue licenses. All exports are expected to go through Almazjuvelir export, previously the sole exporter.Russia's biggest metals producer, Norilsk Nickel said on Tuesday it did not expect a flood of Russian platinum onto the markets if the bill was passed.

Vladimir Potanin, president of the Interros Group which controls Norilsk and other financial and industrial assets, told a news briefing Norilsk was in good financial shape and had no need to export large volumes of platinum."The financial situation at Norilsk is such that it can sell its platinum stocks in stages and without any dumping on the market," Potanin said.

Russia accounted for 20 percent of world platinum supply last year, and the absence of Russian metal from the market sent prices rocketing to $457 a troy ounce in November, the highest since August 1997.