The president's spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said he could not give details, but the programme would cover the tax system, the problem of non-payment of wages, and tariffs on gas, electricity and the railways.

Mr Yeltsin himself would present a plan to parliament at the end of the month.

At the meeting in the Kremlin, the president told the ten business leaders that foreign investors were pulling out because Russian companies themselves were not investing.

Recent panic selling has sent Russia's stock market tumbling

"We seldom meet; it happens when things get unbearable, when the state is hard pressed and the economy starts to show cracks, when foreign investors begin to flee and no investors put money into Russia's industry," Mr Yeltsin said at the beginning of the meeting.

He also used the meeting to criticise the industrialists, complaining that they had triggered the current crisis by failing to invest sufficiently in the Russian economy.

The Russian stock market, whose performance was the world's best last year, is now the worst performing exchange.

Interest rates have trebled and panic selling in the last few days has sent Russia's stock market tumbling.

However, financial markets on Tuesday recovered about 5% from the lows they hit on the previous day.

Help at hand

Washington has announced that the Group of Seven industrialised nations are working on a possible financial aid package to keep Russia from sliding further into chaos similar to the bail-out packages arranged for Asian countries.

Many Russian analysts and financial traders agree that outside help is now essential.

The G7 group, which meets next week, is expected to discuss expanding credits to Russia by the IMF and the World Bank to prop up the rouble.

The BBC economics correspondent says the crisis is the result of the financial contagion spreading from east Asia, as well as economic mismanagement in Moscow.

He says the fear among developing countries is that Russia's problems could spread to them.

Billions of roubles owed

As the government struggles to raise revenues and to convince foreign investors not to abandon the country, it also has to find billions of extra roubles to pay miners, teachers and other state workers who went on strike in protest against wage arrears.

The Prime Minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, has insisted that the rouble - which on Tuesday was trading relatively unchanged at 6.18 to the US dollar - will not be devalued.

The government argues that Russia's underlying economic indicators remain steady and that the financial crisis has only affected investors and not yet reached ordinary Russians.