The Russian Finance Ministry has revealed that Russia has declassified pgm statistics.

A source told Interfax that information on the production, export and import of the metals, that was previously unavailable and kept secret, was now declassified.

He said: "We have received back documents we sent to the interdepartmental commission for consultation."

"One can therefore say that Russian has declassified platinoid metals."

Documents were signed earlier in the year by the president of Russia to remove the classification code, but departments needed to change lists of data constituting state secrets before the information could be published.

The move means firms such as Russia's Norilsk Nickel, which is the biggest producer of palladium in the world, will be able to release more information on its business and provide more detailed results.

Declassification of the data has been a long-running process with president Vladimir Putin first allowing the declassification of the data in March this year. The move has constantly been delayed and in April a major audit by Norilsk Nickel was held back because of it.