The participants are unanimous in that this is a significant step forward, a result of eighteen months of quite challenging work, Maxim Medvedkov, Head of the Trade Negotiations Department at the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Commerce, said in a RIA interview after the session.
The Working Group agreed that by late December this year, WTO member states should submit their comments on the Final Report. Their remarks will be taken into account when finalizing the document.
Informal consultations with the Working Group Chair, Stefan Johannesson, are due to get underway on January 17, 2005. There, a date for the Working Group's next session will be fixed. It will most likely take place next February.
According to Medvedkov, the most contentious issues at the WTO accession talks have to do with customs duties, application of law, agriculture, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, technical regulation at large, and copyright protection.
Also, the United States and Canada continue to express serious concern over the double pricing of fuels, but Russia is unwilling to compromise, Medvedkov said. "It is naive to expect that in order to make the life of U.S. and Canadian fertilizer producers more comfortable, Russia will commit itself to subjecting its energy sector to a systemic reform," the Russian negotiator pointed out.
The Chair of the Working Group, Mr Johannesson, called on Russia to avoid too large a gap between its multilateral and bilateral talks with WTO member states, Medvedkov reported.
"We believe the gap is there, that our multilateral talks are lagging behind, as many things in the Working Group's Report remain unclear to us. This impedes us from completing talks with some [individual member] countries over issues of bilateral concern," our interviewee said.
Earlier this week, Russian WTO negotiators held in Geneva a new round of bilateral talks on access to markets and on pricing policies.
