MOSCOW, April 10 - RAPSI. The government has forwarded a bill to the State Duma to liberalize the supervision of foreign investment and to lift administrative barriers which hinder foreign investment.

The bill says that the law on foreign investment in Russian strategic companies does not apply to investment in companies in which Russia controlled, directly or indirectly, over 50% of share capital at the time of the deal and subsequently retained its shareholding.

The law also does not apply to transactions with foreign investors who are controlled by the Russian government, Russian corporate entities or Russian nationals.

The bill also stipulates that a foreign investor does not need to coordinate a planned transaction if it controlled, directly or indirectly, over 50% of the given strategic company's share capital prior to the transaction, or if the investor is controlled by the controlling shareholder of the given company.

Foreign investors will no longer need to coordinate planned transactions involving food manufacturing companies which use infectious agents in production, or companies which have development licenses for federal mineral blocks if the said investors already own over 75% of these companies' share capital.