President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the country should not cut itself off from foreign investment and technologies.
"We should not, on any account, cut ourselves off from the kind of foreign investment and technology that can drive economic growth," Putin told a conference of business people.
After annexing Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014, Russia was hit with Western sanctions that limited its access to foreign capital and technologies, especially for the banking, energy and defense sectors. Russia imposed retaliatory sanctions on a range of food imports from those countries that had imposed sanctions.