MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. Sectoral sanctions against Russia are used for unfair competition and are harmful for the global economy at large, President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week forum on Wednesday.

"Certain our partners are using a number of restrictions, unilateral financial and the so-called ‘sectoral’ sanctions, for unfair competition," the president said. This is harmful for the whole global economy, Putin said.

Sanctions are used "to push forward one’s own interests and one’s own energy resources, even despite their non-competitiveness," Putin said. "An adverse impact of such steps is evident for the world’s economy at large and for the whole global energy sector," he added. Objective problems in the energy sector does not leave an alternative to their joint resolving by countries of the globe, the president said. "We support joint elimination of obstacles preventing further economic growth of nations, particularly developing economies requiring guaranteed and affordable energy supplies," Putin said.

Digitalization

Putin believes that digitalization of the fuel and energy complex and artificial intelligence would lead to a reduction of energy prices.

Speaking at the Russian Energy Week, Putin said, "Digitalization of the energy complex will be one of the key trends in the development of the fuel and energy complex. Rapid processing of colossal volumes of information and artificial intelligence, introduction of smart grids will allow us to systematically analyze generation and consumption of energy and in the future - significantly reduce the price of energy resources, increase their efficiency and reduce losses," Putin said.

According to him, another important trend in the development of the fuel and energy sector is "reducing energy intensity of the economy, primarily through the mass use of modern technologies."

"Another obvious trend is growth of the availability of energy resources and the energy infrastructure in general, regional markets are being integrated, new routes for the delivery of energy resources are built in the traditional logistics chains, including the Northern Sea Route, the Silk Road," Putin said.

According to him, all these tendencies "will strengthen the connection of producers and consumers even more and lead to further globalization of markets, growth of energy interdependence between different parts of the planet.".

Energy markets

Vladimir Putin called for taking into account the forthcoming formation of new energy markets, in particular in the Asian Pacific region, as well as aggravation of inter-fuel competition.

Speaking at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week forum, Putin noted that according to statistics, up to 2 billion people on the planet still do not have full access to energy sources.

"No doubt that this situation will be changing in the coming decade, which will lead to the formation of new markets, the geography and structure of energy demand will primarily shift to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region," he said.

At the same time, according to him, "we should expect an increase in inter-fuel competition, first of all, of traditional and new energy sources."

Clean energy

The share of clean energy sources in Russia accounts for 84% of power generation and will climb to 90% by 2035, Putin said. 

"Our clean energy sources account in total for about 84% of the overall power generation volume and this share will grow to almost 90% by 2035," the president said.