OREANDA-NEWS. March 31, 2010. A session of the Investment Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) took place on 23rd March 2010 in Paris, France to consider a draft OECD Report on conformity of the Russian law to OECD investment tools. The session was held within the framework of OECD accession for Russia.

The Report was discussed by representatives of OECD member-states and OECD Secretariat, as well as representatives by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Federal Insurance Supervision Service, and the Federal Financial Markets Service.

FAS Russia was represented at the session by Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the Antimonopoly Service.

The Report was prepared by experts of the OECD Investment Committee following several consultations with interested Russian agencies and on the basis of written materials provided as part of the Initial Memorandum stating the position of the Russian Federation regarding OECD acts, which was submitted in June 2009.

Discussing the Report focused on the issues related to restrictions and regulation of direct foreign investments, real estate, capital flows and cross-border trading.

The next round of Report consideration is scheduled for October 2010 session of the Working Group on International Investment Statistics.

An important part of the discussion was devoted to legislative regulation of foreign investments in economic entities of strategic importance for the national defence and security. "The Committee's session lasted the full working day", said Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. "So we had sufficient time to answer most diverse questions of representatives of OECD member-states about specifics of the Russians law and practice of the Government Commission on Control over Foreign Investments".

Overall participation in the session enabled FAS Russia to present its competent opinion on the issue, which, in its turn, will favour Russia accession to the OECD.