MOSCOW, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Russia and Belarus agreed on Friday to expand the use of the rouble and speed up the payout of the second $1 billion tranche of a Russian loan to Belarus, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, agencies reported.
The two countries agreed the $2 billion stabilisation loan last year, and Friday's announcement on the second tranche came after Putin and his Belarussian counterpart Sergei Sidorsky signed a joint strategy for averting the impact of the economic crisis.
"The plan sets out measures that will support our economies and will not let them fall below 2008 levels," Putin said, adding that the second tranche of the 15-year loan, originally planned for Feb. 28, will be issued sooner, Itar-tass reported.
Putin also said that the two discussed "achieving the stated goal of using the rouble as a regional currency," Interfax reported.
Negotiations between the former communist allies have previously linked loans to expanded use of the rouble.
In December, Minsk asked Moscow to lend it 100 billion roubles ($2.82 billion) they agree to account bilateral trade in the Russian currency, but Russia said last week that it was not interested in providing the loan. [ID:nLO467206]
Russia is seeking to turn its rouble into a regional reserve currency as one way of combating volatility brought on by its dependence on world oil prices and, as a result, the dollar.
At Friday's signing ceremony in Moscow, Putin said that creating a united economic zone is the top priority in relations between the two countries.
"I am convinced that to minimise the negative effects of the global crisis on our economies...we must fully use the advantages of integration," Putin said, RIA news agency reported.
Discussions over a monetary union between Russia and Belarus began in Sept. 1993, shortly after the break-up of the rouble zone. But talks stalled as Russian reforms advanced and Belarus' economy stayed along Soviet-era command lines.
Belarus, Russia's largest trading partner accounting for almost 5 percent of Russian exports, devalued its rouble by 20 percent on Jan. 1, partly to meet IMF conditions set on a $2.5 billion loan and also to catch up with a slide in value of the Russian rouble.
Earlier, the Belarussian central bank switched to the dollar peg from a previous Russian rouble link. It has talked of fixing the domestic currency to a basket of the dollar, euro and the Russian rouble some time this year. (Reporting by Simon Shuster; Editing by Victoria Main)