The bill, which would ban domestic prices from being quoted in currencies other than the Russian ruble, passed through parliament's lower house in its second reading earlier in the day, with just one "no" vote.
Finance Ministry spokesman Pavel Kuznetzov said the ministry supported the clause demanding that price tags quote domestic prices in the national currency rather than in dollars or euros, but that it was against restricting foreign-currency denomination in business practices.
"Companies and individuals often use a peg to a foreign currency to protect their interests in conditions of still quite tangible inflation," he said.
The provision banning the media from mentioning terms that denote foreign currencies is also contentious, said Kuznetsov.
Following parliament's first initiatives to promote the national currency in May, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the Cabinet was unlikely to look on the bill favorably, adding that customs statistics and duties in Russia had been fixed in euros and its foreign debt was counted in foreign currencies.
Kudrin rubbished the original idea, saying it would be ridiculous to talk about global economic matters in rubles. "This issue is absolutely unreasonable and absolutely absurd in its current form."
The bill was proposed by Yevgeny Velikhov, the head of the Russian Public Chamber, a new body set up to act as a bridge between society and the state, and was later backed by the pro-presidential United Russia faction.
