Official: US business still likes Russia despite sanctions

MOSCOW, Dec 5 (PRIME) – The U.S. has included 190 Russians and 395 companies on the sanctions list, but the U.S. business does not want to leave Russia as there are prospects for trade and investment, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday at a meeting of the Civic Chamber.

“Currently, restrictions are imposed on 190 Russian individuals and 395 legal entities, including leaders of the Russian economy, under the publicly announced U.S. restrictions,” he said.

“In spite of the sanctions, good prospects still exist for development of bilateral trade cooperation and for implementation of mutually beneficial investment projects. The unfavorable conditions have led to a fall in trade turnover by about a third. But American business in general has no wish to leave our market, even though they are actively pushed toward it.”

He said that bilateral trade started to improve this year.

Nevertheless, Moscow expects relations with Washington to worsen at the beginning of 2018 when “new reports coming from the U.S., including reports on connections between oligarchs of the Russian business and Russian public officials are expected,” he said.

“New destructive impulses will come from the U.S. as we are getting closer to the Russian presidential elections. We are yet to see the scale and severity of these impulses.”

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