MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, has adopted a bill, which in particular prohibits the issuance of licenses for the development of national mineral resources to foreign companies. The document was approved in the second reading.
According to the amended bill, only legal entities established in accordance with the law of the Russian Federation, as well as individual entrepreneurs, who are citizens of Russia, can be users of national mineral resources.
If the law is adopted, within 30 days from the date it comes into effect, foreign legal entities must be notified of the need to transfer the right to use a subsoil plot to a Russian legal entity. After that, within 90 days, foreign subsoil users are required to create a legal entity in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation in order to continue their activities.
The draft bill was submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers in December and adopted in the first reading in February. Initially, the draft law stipulated that the Russian Railways company receives the right to use local subsoil plots to extract minerals for the construction of the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian railways without auction.
By the second reading, the relevant State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection finalized the document. The amended bill stipulates that subsoil plots can be used without auction by entities of the natural monopoly in railway transport, with which civil law contracts were concluded for construction, reconstruction and repair of public railway transport infrastructure facilities. According to the amendments, the authorities of the Russian regions will make a decision on granting such a right.