Art Franczek, President of American Institute of Business and Economics, took part in recent Gaidar Forum in Moscow. On its sidelines, he was interviewed by Invest Foresight, Forum’s main media partner, and shared his views of the state of the US-Russia business relations.
According to Mr Franczek, “US-Russia trade relationship has been difficult for the last few years because of the arbitrary sanctions that have been imposed by the United States on Russia, but we try to work within these limits. Russia’s doing a lot of initiatives trying to improve the movement of goods. The faster goods are moved, the more a government collects in customs tariffs and the more money business makes. So it’s a win-win to move goods quickly. And we’ve seen significant improvement in Russia’s legislative environment which facilitates trade.”
One of sensitive matters is international energy trade. “Energywise, the main issue between Russia, European Union and the United States is Nord Stream 2 which is at a completion stage. Russia and Europe want it, but the US wants to impose sanctions on companies and countries that finance or are involved with the project. The US has stated that one of its goals is to export liquefied gas to Europe, so Americans have a commercial interest here. Yet in general American companies see the policy of sanctions as counterproductive as they lose the Russian market to the Chinese or Latin Americans,” Art Franczek noted, adding, that to improve the global trade situation, politicians and states must talk to each other and follow a due process.