Russian firms must fill void left by Western businesses – Putin

Foreign companies that have left Russia will come back sooner or later, but domestic manufacturers must ensure there’s no niche in the market for them to return, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

“We need domestic developments to lay at the heart of everything, we need to strive for this and do it as quickly as possible,” he said at a meeting with the heads of engineering schools and their industrial partners in Veliky Novgorod. “So that, when foreign partners decide to return, it will happen someday, we need the market to be occupied by our manufacturers.”

The president noted that the departure of foreign companies from Russia due to Ukraine-related sanctions has forced domestic manufacturers to develop their own products.

“Our haters don’t even realize what they have done, they forced us, lazy and resting on the laurels of our mineral resources, to develop our own intellectual products, and this is very good, we cannot, of course, allow failure,” he said.

Putin stated that monopolies are unwelcome as they are detrimental to the economy, adding that the lack of competition from abroad must be compensated for by domestic competition.

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