Spox: Kremlin believes Russia’s imports substitution successful

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (PRIME) -- Russia’s imports substitution program can be seen as a success, as no country produces 100% of everything it consumes on its own, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Previously, Kommersant business daily reported quoting a research of the National Rating Agency that Russia was unable to substitute imports of foods completely with local products.

“The program is successful. In the end, we didn’t have a goal of 100% substitution of imports taking into account all nuances of the food production and so on, no single country does that,” Peskov said.

“The food industry completely satisfies demands of Russians. If we speak about nuances, then yes, imports are obviously happening, and it will continue like that. We have never set a task of completely stopping imports of all foods,” he said.

It would have been better for all if there was no mutual restrictions imposed by the West and Russia. The sanctions hurt everyone, but European food producers suffer more from inability of selling their products here than Russians that are able to buy foods of local producers, Peskov said.

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