Agro Perspectiva

Russian govt approves agreements for country's accession to WTO

08.06.2012 11:29 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — The Russian government has approved the agreements for the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and sent them to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, for ratification, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. All of the documents must be ratified by the Russian government, parliament and president by July 23. If that does not happen, Russia will have to resume talks on the terms of it becoming a full member of the WTO. Speaking at a governmental meeting on Thursday, Dmitry Medvedev urged the members of the government to closely cooperate with the lawmakers in order to complete the procedure of Russia’s joining the WTO in compliance with the schedule. «In early August Russia must become a full member of the WTO» the Prime Minister stressed. At the same time, politicians and experts admit that Russia’s entry to the WTO will be challenging for a number of branches of the national economy. In particular, the financial sector, agriculture, machine-building and car-building industries will be at risk. The degree of these risks has not been fully calculated. Some experts believe that such risks will be minimal. Russia spent 18 years trying to enter the WTO, so the companies involved had enough time to prepare for the risks. We hear from Andrei Yakovlev, director of the Institute for Enterprise and Market Analysis at the Higher School of Economics. «Russia had been trying to enter the WTO for many years and managed to end up with more detailed entry than other countries. Enterprises had 10 years to prepare for this. That is why complaints from some of the industries do not seem to be well grounded.» But the manufacturers don’t agree. According to the chairman of the «Business Russia» public organization Boris Titov, most of the companies of the processing industry did not have proper conditions for the upgrade and reconstruction of their facilities. «The business climate was not favorable in our country and investments were hard to attract including foreign investments» he says. However, the WTO rules enable the national governments to adjust their terms of WTO membership and protect the interests of national manufacturers. At the governmental meeting Dmitry Medvedev promised that after Russia becomes a full member of the WTO, it will focus first of all on national interests and will be able to give a tough response to its competitors. Currently, the authorities are busy with the development of measures aimed at supporting national enterprises and branches that could suffer most of all from Russia’s membership in the WTO.