Report: Deputy retracts bills to ban phones, PCs without Russian soft

MOSCOW, Jul 5 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party deputy Sergei Zhigarev, head of the economic policy committee, has withdrawn amendments seeking to ban the sale of smartphones and computers without local software shortly after submitting them to the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, business daily Vedomosti reported late on Thursday.

Zhigarev submitted three bills on Wednesday, which amended the law on consumers’ rights protection, the Administrative Code, and the law on competition forbidding distribution of smartphones, computers, and Smart TV sets that fail to comply with special software requirements.

The applications that would be mandatory for preinstallation were to be put on a special register. The government was supposed to impose an order of keeping the register and appoint an operator in charge.

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