Earlier, officials said the government would be in place by the end of this week. Since the confirmation of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov last Friday, one first deputy prime minister, three deputy prime ministers, foreign minister and federal border service chief have been named.

Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin, and Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu all kept their posts.

Yeltsin said filling the key post of finance minister was ``a difficult question'', Russian news agencies reported. Currently holding the post is Mikhail Zadornov of the Liberal Yabloko Party.

Primakov said there was no truth in the report that the government was planning a media blackout. On Wednesday, Andrei Korotkov, head of the government's information department, had confirmed a temporary limit on media access to officials as they familiarisedthemselves with their new duties.

``The work of the Cabinet must be open to the public,'' Primakov declared. He said there would be regular television appearances and press interviews once the new government was up and running.

Austrian foreign minister Wolfgang Schuessel, due to lead a European Union delegation in talks later today in Moscow with Primakov and foreign minister Ivan Ivanov, suggested on German radio that European bankers show Russians ``how to organise banks''.

The Russian banking system has virtually collapsed in the wake of the rouble devaluation and debt default in mid-August.