The Russian Prime Minister, Sergei Kiryenko, has said the country's economic crisis is past its worst, and the financial markets are stabilising.

He was speaking in the Ukranian city of Yalta, where eleven Black Sea countries signed a charter establishing their cooperation group as a regional economic organisation.

It aims at boosting free trade in the area.

But correspondents say member countries have often divergent interests.

Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia are currently competing for the new route of Azerbaijani oil to western markets.