SOCHI, September 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the country’s trade representatives to find alternative suppliers of high-technology equipment amid Western sanctions.

Speaking at the Investment Forum in Sochi on Friday, Medvedev said the government should support all the enterprises that have been directly targeted by the sanctions against Russia, imposed by the US, the EU and other countries.

“The government is already undertaking these supportive steps, not only in the financial sector. I have called on our trade representatives abroad to search for alternative suppliers of high-technology equipment,” Medvedev said.

The Russian prime minister has also stressed that Russia should build a “more rational balance” of its own production and imports. “Especially, if we talk about production and technologies ensuring the country’s defensive capacity,” he said.

On Thursday, the Russian prime minister announced that the Russian government is expected to draft a plan on import replacement in the industrial and agricultural sectors in early October.

Since March, the United States and the European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow over its stance on the conflict in Ukraine. Moscow has responded by introducing a one-year ban on imports of selected foods from sanctioning countries (the EU, US and several others).

In mid-September, Brussels introduced further sanctions, for the first time targeting directly the financing of the state-owned oil sector, which is crucial to the Russian economy. Washington similarly strengthened its sanctions, adding Russia’s Gazprom, Europe’s leading energy provider, to the list of targeted companies.