The age of the WTO is not in sight

Russia will definitely not be accepted into the world trade club until 2005

Having returned from the next round of negotiations on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, the head of our delegation, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Maxim Medvedkov admitted: in 2004 Russia will not become a member of the WTO.

Moreover, it is not yet possible to indicate even an approximate time frame for the successful completion of negotiations. “A conservative forecast for the completion of negotiations is before my retirement, but it is difficult to talk about optimistic forecasts, since in 2003 we believed that we would complete the negotiation process in 2004, and in 1996 we thought that we would complete it in 1997. But this did not happen in any of the options,” explained Mr. Medvedkov.

However, as the head of the working group of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on accession to the WTO, Alexey Mordashov, told the Vremya Novostey newspaper, “it is not the terms, but the conditions under which Russia will join the WTO that are of primary importance.” “Moreover, Russia’s accession to the WTO is beneficial not only for us, but also for the participating countries - as a guarantee of stable and transparent access to the Russian market,” added Mr. Mordashov.

In the meantime, countries that are clearly not the main players in the WTO are trying to make money on Russian difficulties. Thus, Georgia, which previously declared that it would block Russia’s entry, triumphantly announced that it would no longer do this, and Bulgaria, on the contrary, expanded the list of its demands. So much so that Mr. Medvedkov even suggested that some kind of technical error had crept into their documents. However, nothing depends on these countries. The decision regarding Russia will be made by the European Union and the United States. However, there is no convergence of our positions with them. As Vasily Zavarayev, an analyst at BrokerCreditService, explained to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, “Russia is beneficial to the West as a supplier of raw materials, and not as a seller of products that are competitive due to cheap energy and have a higher degree of processing.”

Vera SITNINA