OREANDA-NEWS. December 03, 2010. Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Andrey Tsyganov addressed the conference “Modern Business in Russia. The Best Business Practices and Strategies in 2010-2011”, organized by the Business FM radio and the BFM.ru, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Participants discussed effective business strategies in view of a great number of important factors affecting any company – from global economic trends and forecasts to external and domestic risks.

In his turn, Deputy Head of FAS Russia informed the attendees about the practice of control over foreign investors in the Russian companies of strategic importance and described specific features of enforcing the law on foreign investments in the strategic sectors of the economy of the Russian Federation.

“Being the authorized body for control over foreign investments in strategic business entities in our country, FAS Russia pays considerable attention to improving the national law, which plays the leading role in regulating investment relations and setting the rule for access of foreign investors to the national economy”, stated Andrey Tsyganov.

FAS Russia is of the opinion that attracting foreign investments is one of the main areas for developing competition in the Russian market, and in recent years a lot has been done in this field.

In particular, to facilitate entry of large foreign strategic investors in Russia, the transaction thresholds are considerably increased and in some cases they are even higher that in developed countries in spite of lack of comparability between markets and companies’ costs. The statutory periods for decision-making on controlled transactions are reduced considerably.

Andrey Tsyganov presented statistics of decisions made by the Government Commission on investments in strategic enterprises. The Commission refused only two petitions out of 37 petitions about foreigners investing in the capital of Russian strategic companies. “FAS Russia considered 129 petitions, and enquiries returned to the applicants did not contain any prohibitions as they concerned the enterprises that are not qualified as the strategic ones or the cases when foreign companies were not given control over Russian strategic companies”.

According to Andrey Tsyganov, the Law “On the Procedures for Foreign Investments in Business Entities of Strategic Importance for the National Defence and State Security” adopted in 2008 does not really prevent entry of foreign capital to strategic sectors. “In Russia there are no areas of activities closed to foreign investors”, concluded Deputy Head of FAS Russia.