MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. Russia will pick and choose which foreign brands it lets back into the country based on a cost/benefit analysis, only opening the gate for companies who bring value to the country, President Vladimir Putin said.
"If there is value for us to allow this or that company to come back, we should let it in," he said at a meeting with members of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) Association.
"I'll put it simply, in layman's terms: if it doesn't benefit us, we can cite 1000 reasons to keep them out. And out of these thousand reasons, 999 will definitely comply with WTO requirements, I assure you! And we'll be arguing about the last one in court. For at least 15 years," the President added.
Putin stressed that he wasn’t exaggerating, that this is how things work.
"You understand, when someone left our market, violated our laws, and also violated WTO laws, we told them: "We'll take you to the WTO court." [They responded] "Go ahead, be our guest! We'll drag this out for 10, 15, 20 years." We were told this three years ago. Well, that's how we should treat them. Nothing personal, just business," the President said.
The Russian leader recalled that he asked the government to come up with certain conditions for foreign brands who wished to return to the country. "Of course, we must take into account the behavior of our partners in the previous three years. Well, of course, we can't do without this either, we must act decently," Putin said.