ROME, July 3. /TASS/. Russian Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev expects that the food embargo will be in effect until 2020, he told journalists on the sidelines of the 40th session of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
"We hope that the food embargo will further increase the volume of production and will not only be limited to 2018. We expect it to be in effect until 2020 and beyond," he said.
Earlier, President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree extending the Russian counter sanctions until December 31, 2018. The document has been published on the website of legal information of the Russian authorities.
On June 29, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the Russian government will propose extending the counter-sanctions until December 31, 2018. He recalled that earlier the European Union had extended sanctions against Russia.
"In this situation, we will respond adequately, yesterday we discussed this issue with the president. The government will propose to the president that the counter measures should be extended for another year until December 31, 2018," Medvedev said.
On June 15, during his annual televised question and answer session, President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would make decisions concerning its retaliatory sanctions taking into consideration relations with other countries. "Our government has extended sanctions until December 31," he said. "We will see how our relations develop with the countries that imposed sanctions on us. As for endless expansion of sanctions, if our counterparts lift their economic sanctions, then we will do the same, as otherwise we will face issues within the World Trade Organization," Putin pointed out.