MOSCOW, March 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s...

"The Federal Registration Service [a ministry agency] must make significant improvements in ... issuing real estate titles and registering real estate sales deals," Vladimir Putin told a meeting of senior ministry officials.

"We have to admit that registration procedures remain bureaucratic and inconvenient," Putin said, adding that commercial organizations were taking advantage of the current situation to charge fees for providing these services.

He said the ministry should be involved in drafting a series of bylaws to clearly regulate NGO formation and registration in Russia.

Russia has been subjected to considerable Western criticism following adoption of a new law on NGOs late last year that tightened financial reporting requirements for foreign groups. Many Russian politicians say NGOs were used to back popular uprisings in neighboring Georgia and Ukraine, and that rules for foreign NGOs in some Western countries are no less stringent.