MOSCOW, December 23 (RAPSI) – The Russian government's legislative commission has endorsed a bill to ban the signing of state contracts with offshore companies, TASS reported on Tuesday.

The comission's statement says that the bill aims to support Russian producers and to stimulate import substitution. The bill bans the signing of state contracts with companies that are registered in the countries and jurisdictions that are on the list of offshore areas.

It also obliges the legislative commission to check that the applicants for such contracts comply with these requirements and to reject them if they don’t.

In December 2013, President Vladimir Putin in his annual address to the Federal Assembly called for a crackdown on Russian companies that dodge taxes by registering in offshore jurisdictions.