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Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), the country's big-business lobby, has said it would be counterproductive to impose restrictions on foreign companies that have stayed on in Russia. He was speaking at an outreach session of the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum held as part of the Innoprom industrial trade fair in Yekaterinburg, TASS reported. 

"Our position is that foreign businesses acting in good faith that have remained in Russia should be entitled to national treatment in the broad sense, provided they play by the rules. There is no need to show this business a red card," Shokhin said. 

Doing so, he argued, would be ineffective from the standpoint of Russia's economic and technological model. 

Shokhin said the RSPP, together with the Association of European Businesses and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, had earlier submitted a joint position to the State Duma and the Presidential administration on the rules governing the employment of highly qualified specialists at foreign companies. It was important, he said, to prevent any tightening of the requirements applied to such employees. 

Shokhin has previously said that the draft law on highly qualified foreign specialists, which is due to be considered by the Duma shortly, is flawed. In his view, salary cannot be the sole criterion for identifying foreign specialists whose skills are in demand. 

"Who should qualify? The simplest criterion is pay, and there is a proposal that a highly qualified foreign specialist should earn more than 700,000 rubles a month (approximately $9,000/month). But we believe it is not just about salary. If our labour shortage keeps developing the way it is, couriers in the delivery sector will probably soon be earning that kind of money," Shokhin said. 

He stressed that the law should take account of demand for "industrial specialists, above all highly qualified ones".