MOSCOW, December 3 – RAPSI. The State Duma and the Civic Chamber are planning consolidate the priority of Russian goods over imported goods in legislation when making purchases for state agencies, Izvestia daily reported.

United Russia party members are going to discuss the specifics of the bill in mid-December at a special forum which will include the participation of experts in this area. According to the bill, foreigners should not be allowed to take part in tenders held on the portal of state purchases if the goods are not produced in Russia.

It is difficult to draft laws such as these as it is necessary to consider many different minor aspects, Sergei Zheleznyak, a deputy State Duma speaker from the ruling United Russia party said. He added that a social influence is preferable to a legislative order, he said.

Civic Chamber member Sergei Markov has agreed that adopting laws making officials purchase Russian goods is a must. Markov said that there will be no contradictions with the WTO requirements under this kind of policy, since these laws do not affect the market.

Another Civic Chamber member Maxim Grigoryev has backed the idea, but he believes that people should not be made to purchase national goods by legislation.
Mikhail Yevrayev, former head of the Federal Antimonopoly Department on State Order Placement

Control, believes the idea to ban foreign goods where there are similar Russian ones available will not be successful in terms of the economy.

In line with the Russian federal law, ‘On the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation’, № 32, of April 4, 2005, one of the Civic Chamber’s functions is to facilitate coordination between the socially significant interests of citizens of Russia, NGOs, and national and local authorities, in order to resolve the most important problems of economic and social development, to ensure national security, and to defend the rights and freedoms of citizens of Russia, the Russian constitutional system, and the democratic principles of the development of civil society in Russia. The Russian Civic Chamber has 126 elected members.