RIA NOVOSTI. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev emphasized the need of the fight against protectionism in global trade, and also to reduce government influence on the economy.
“One of the problems that we are also working on is to reduce government impact on the national economy," the Russian President said in a special video address to the participants of a business summit held by APEC (the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation).
“A new stage of privatization got under way, it will cover oil and infrastructure sectors, i.e. in the most significant sectors of the economy," he said emphasizing that these steps are being taken first and foremost to make the economy more efficient and develop competition.
Medvedev pointed out that “protectionism has really become one of the threats to the efficiency of the global economy”. “Russia is the only large country that unfortunately did not join WTO and it would seem that there is a pile of opportunities to impose customs restrictions. But we don not want to do this,“ he said. “We are prepared to join WTO right now and not to take needless protective measures,” the Russian President said adding “the matter is not in us”.
“We welcome the entry of foreign investors into Russian companies, including those engaged in mineral extraction,“ Medvedev emphasized noting that “the list of restrictions that existed has been substantially cut”. The Russian President said that the Russian Direct Investment Fund was recently established and its members will be representatives of global investment institutions. “We’ll define the strategy together with them,” he pointed out.
“Today the global economic picture is far from perfect, but Russia, I hope, is now more crisis-resistant than in 2008," Medvedev stressed.
