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Russia will curb participation of Turkish companies in construction business — minister

Turkish construction firms account for not more than 20% of works in big projects in Moscow and million cities

MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. The participation of Turkish companies in Russia’s construction business will be minimized starting from early 2016, the Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities Mikhail Men said in an interview aired by the Rossiya-24 TV news channel on Monday.

"In any case no one will root out those big projects where [Turkish] companies are involved. Of course, they’ll be finished. But starting from (the beginning) of next year some certain decisions will be made in order to minimize those companies’ entrance in new projects," the Minister said, adding that the Ministry is forced to pursue this policy due to political tensions between Turkey and Russia.

According to Men, Turkish construction firms account for not more than 20% of works in big projects in Moscow and million cities. He also said that Russian companies will replace Turkish contractors.

As TASS reported earlier the Russian government is working at the second round of restrictive measures against Turkey, which outlines a list of items of works (services) banned within the territory of the Russian Federation for organization under the Turkish jurisdiction. The issue is about import of construction services, tourism services, hotel-type services as well as woodworking industry and training of Russian companies’ civilian personnel in Turkey.

On November 30, the Russian government imposed an immediate ban on supplies of a range of food products from Turkey, suspended several governmental cooperation programs and limited employment of Turkish nationals within the Russian Federation.