Upper House Speaker: Russia will soon be struck off many blacklists

Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council (upper house of Russian parliament), is confident that Russia will shortly be dropped from many blacklists. "I look with optimism to these processes," Mironov said on Friday, replying at a news conference to a question about prospects for Russia's exclusion from the blacklist of money-laundering states at a Paris session of the Financial Action Task Force.

After stressing that in this field over recent years Russia has achieved "certain breakthroughs in legislation", Mironov noted that a FATF decision could also be helped by the fact that Russia "has started creating normal conditions for capital investment in the real sector of the economy".

Mironov pointed to "a recent statement on a possible amnesty for capital taken out of Russia earlier" to offshore companies and on the need to invest money in Russian production.

"The orientation should always be first on one's potentialities, the possibilities of the domestic investors, and towards creating for them such conditions that they do not fear for their investments," the chairman of the upper chamber said.

According to him, if such conditions are created, then Russia "will have an economic boom thanks to which our state will catch up with all the developed countries."