world economic forum
© AFP / Fabrice Coffrini
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the refusal by Russian businesses to participate in next year's World Economic Forum in Davos is not going to have any negative impact on the country's reputation.

"Reputation of any country that is a part of the global economy basically depends on its economic power, structure of its economy, as well as on the results it demonstrates from the point of view of GDP, technologies, macro-economic parameters," said Putin, speaking at the Russia-ASEAN Summit in Singapore.

Putin stressed that Russian businessmen are free to decide whether or not to attend the January WEF. The comment came amid recent reports that three Russian businessmen - Viktor Vekselberg, the owner of Renova group, aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, and the head of VTB Bank Andery Kostin had been barred from the event over sanctions imposed by Washington.

Earlier this week, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that a delegation from state-owned companies may boycott Davos if the three businessmen were kept away from the world-famous business event.

"If all these decisions that have been taken in relation to Russian business representatives are not changed, then we will have to make a decision regarding the participation in the Davos Forum of state employees and Russian companies where the state has a stake," Medvedev said on the sidelines of Italian-sponsored Libya crisis talks in Sicily.