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Russia may put off WTO entry

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia is mulling putting on the backburner its plans to join the World Trade Organisation because of excessive demands from the United States, Government and Parliament leaders said.

"A number of countries, including the U.S., are deliberately working to block our admission to the WTO, putting forward new demands on issues settled earlier," a senior Government official told the Izvestia daily. "In this situation, the Government tends to heed the voice of those who are against joining WTO, at least on the terms offered today."

Main obstacles

Russia has been negotiating its WTO entry for the past 13 years.

As of today, the U.S. is the only WTO member which is yet to sign an agreement on WTO entry terms for Russia.

The main obstacles have been U.S. demands for Russia to protect intellectual property rights, to hike domestic prices of natural gas to European levels, to open up its financial sector by letting foreign banks set up branches, to lower customs duties for U.S. aircraft, and repeal meat import quotas.

Russian Parliament Speaker Boris Gryzlov confirmed that Russia could postpone WTO entry indefinitely.

"Russia will only join WTO on favourable terms," Mr. Gryzlov told reporters on Tuesday.

"Otherwise our accession will be put off for a long time. WTO is not an end in and of itself."

President Vladimir Putin last month accused the U.S. of artificially stalling on Russia's bid to join WTO.

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