Russia regrets that France is closing its trade mission in Moscow and calls for development of bilateral economic relations, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, TASS reports.
"On July 16, we received a note from France’s embassy to Moscow notifying us that the Business France agency is closing in Russia," the ministry said. "The French side’s decision to announce the closure of their trade mission is a sovereign right of France. We have only to regret that Paris failed to listen to our compelling recommendations."
"For our part, we continue to call for development of the bilateral trade and economic ties and support the work in Russia of the bodies aimed at their boosting," the ministry said.
Moscow put forward proposals settling the status of the Business France trade and investment service reporting to France’s Embassy to Russia but Paris failed to use them, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
"The issue of Business France status was raised in talks of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs," the ministry said. "We told the French side many times that the mission’s status should be settled in line with Russian legislation. The partners were offered options of how to do it, either by registering a legal entity or by concluding a separate inter-governmental agreement with the Russian Federation."
"In this case, they should have never had problems similar to the present ones," the ministry added.