MOSCOW, September 15. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), uniting the largest players on the country’s Internet market, will create a group to work out a concept of storing personal data of citizens locally, the association said in a statement Monday.

The group will handle the elaboration of recommendations and comments on arguable issues of the law on the protection of personal data. The group will prepare offers to stimulate the industry so that foreign Internet companies find it comfortable to work in Russia, the RAEC’s Deputy director Sergei Grebennikov said.

He said that foreign companies opt for other countries for their servers because Russia lacks legal guarantees to protect the data of Internet users.

The results will be filed to deputies of the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, the Communications and Mass Media Ministry and the Federal Service for Communications, IT and Mass Communication Oversight in two weeks.

“The law exerts additional pressure on business, regulators and involves extra spending, thus it could negatively influence the gross domestic product,” the RAEC said.

In July, President Vladimir Putin signed the law, which obliges Internet companies to store the personal data of Russian users on servers located in the country. The requirements will come into force on September 1, 2016.