August 9, the Minister of Economic Development of Russia Maxim Oreshkin during the working visit in Paris held a meeting with representatives of the French business environment.
Such meetings are traditionally held during Minister’s foreign visits. At the event there were representatives of different spheres of economy: of big companies and of small and medium-sized businesses. «We highly appreciate the stable interest of the French business to the Russian one», - said Maxim Oreshkin.
The participants of the meeting were talking about state regulation, touched upon the questions of sanctions and new USA legislation. «I noted that the European participants’ reaction is positive. There is some influence on the relations between Russia and Europe, we can say that European partners are going to invest actively and develop their business in Russia», - the Minister said.
«For example, a representative of the company Total participated at the meeting, he is actively handling projects in Russia that works on the project YAMAL LNG with NOVATEK Company and they are discussing the possibility of further development of projects. This project continued its existence in a difficult period for the Russian economy, that’s why the company is satisfied with the work in Russia and continues its business there», - Maxim Oreshkin added.
According to his words, any sanction constraints is the thing that ruins everything and interferes with all activities that could have been developing between Russian and European partners. «The moment when the sanctions were imposed they influenced on the balance of payments and on the dynamics of the Russian economy, - noted the Head of the Ministry of Economic Development. – Largely they became at the same time motivating factor both for Russian companies, for the population of Russia and for the Russian government to act more actively in order to develop our own economy. From that point of view, there is a positive side of the sanctions. But moving forward, the presence of limitations will have a bad influence, because Russia is a part of a global world and we should develop our projects together with our partners, but those restrictions only interfere with projects’ development».