The Russian precious metals giant, Norilsk Nickel, has announced that its long-awaited data disclosure on pgms will be delayed for at least one month due to bureaucratic hold-ups.

The data was expected on February 19 as a new law allowing the disclosure of data on private PGMs stocks, production and trade comes into force.

However, President Vladimir Putin also has to sign a separate decree to amend the list of state secrets to allow the publication of pgm statistics.

Alexander Perelygin, Norilsk deputy chief executive, told Reuters that the decree should be signed within the next few days.

He stated: 'The data may be disclosed in the six months following February 19 at the latest. It could happen in a month or a month and a half in the best case.'

The government decided to relax laws governing the disclosure of pgms in an attempt to make the market more transparent and therefore attractive to foreign investors.