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Russian market gaps left by food embargo to be filled soon — Medvedev

The Russian market is open for partners in the Customs Union and the CIS, as well as companies from the countries of Latin America and the Asia-Pacific, Russian prime minister says
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ITAR-TASS/Valery Sharifulin
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
© ITAR-TASS/Valery Sharifulin

SOCHI, September 19. /ITAR-TASS/. The gaps on the Russian markets left amid Moscow’s embargo on imported Western food will be soon filled, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at the International Investment Forum in Sochi on Friday.

“Producers from other countries know very well that the market gaps will not remain empty for a long time. Very soon, they will be filled, primarily, by domestic producers,” Medvedev said.

The Russian market is also open for partners in the Customs Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as companies from the countries of Latin America and the Asia-Pacific.

Medvedev said "there is no need to return to mobilization economics, as it is a way to nowhere, while Russia needs a modern and effective market economy."

“We will not change our course; we will uphold the main principles of our macro-economic politics - budgetary rule, fundamental principles of the taxation politics, fundamental institutions, flexibility of the currency exchange rate with currency interventions if necessary, targeting inflation rates, balancing the budget; all of them will remain unchanged," Medvedev assured.

"But, certain corrections will be necessary, and they to a considerable extent depend on the external factors. We have to solve these tasks in a rather narrow corridor of possibilities, under conditions of limited financial and partly technological resource, but we are obliged to do that," Medvedev said.

“Russia’s national development course remains unchanged because an epoch of anti-Russian sanctions will sooner or later be over”, he said.

"Even under conditions of sanctions, we should continue the former course. Sanctions will be dropped, we will come to terms sooner or later as it always was in the world history, but we should not change the course,” he said.

"Making correct decisions is the best way of protection. We have not gone off the right way so far, and I hope we will neither go the wrong way in the future," Medvedev said. 

{article_photo:750435:'Dmitry Medvedev We are going to solve the external factor problem for Russia’s economy':'left':'50'}Developing cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries

Russia should build up trust with Asian countries and the scale of the country’s involvement in Asia-Pacific regional affairs, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

“First, it is needed to increase the level of trust between Russia and Asian countries at state, corporate and civil levels,” he noted. “There will be no investments without trust and there will be no development without investments,” Medvedev said.

“Secondly, it is needed to qualitatively expand the scale of involvement in regional affairs, meeting the demand in relations with Russia formed for the last few years,” the prime minister added.

Russia has its own national interests

The Western countries stopped acknowledging the fact that Russia has its own national interests and that the whole European security is currently threatened, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

The Russian premier said the West fails to realize that “thousands of people being killed today in the geographical center of Europe, that in fact there is a threat to the whole system of the European security, as well as to basic values, further globalization and the philosophy of peaceful development, which took shape after the World War II.”

Medvedev also recalled that the construction of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline had been started earlier this month. "We shall be able not only to increase the supply of gas to Pacific Rim markets but also install gas supply service in the regions of the Far East and Eastern Siberia. The pipeline route was selected so as to ensure the maximum provision of gas to our territories," he pointed out.

The prime minister said that work had been started on large-scale transport infrastructure projects with a view of attracting transport flows of the Asia-Pacific. "This refers primarily to the modernization of Trans-Siberia and Baikal-Amur Mainline Railways for tht Pacific region so as to increase their carrying capacity. Investments in these Mainline Railways will amount to more than half a trillion rubles," Medvedev said, adding that, apart from this, merchant seaports and motor roads are being also upgraded along the Europe-Asia route.