Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George Bush attended the ceremony, which speaks volumes.
By force of circumstances, Washington has the last say on Russia's accession to the WTO, which is a priority for this country. The United States has been in no hurry to clear the last hurdle in the issue until recently. Now the parties have reached agreement on the key issues involving 100 services sectors.
Moscow has been making efforts to join the WTO for 12 years, and it has spent the last six years trying to get approval of each of the 58 member countries of the working group for Russia's accession to the WTO. A few questions remain to be clarified in multilateral negotiations, and Russia may become a WTO member next year. Vietnam has just become the 150th member of the authoritative organization.
What is Russia's attitude to its de facto membership in the World Trade Organization? On the one hand, there is growing understanding of the event's significance, but at the same time, most Russians still wonder what benefits it will bring their country, if any. Even parliamentarians differ on the issue in their comments on the very difficult negotiations with the U.S., which have paved the way for Russia's accession to the WTO.
Yevgeny Fyodorov, head of the State Duma committee on economic policy, entrepreneurship and tourism, believes "the accession will boost the modernization of Russian industries and will also make it possible to improve the competitiveness of Russian goods on global markets." He said Russia would enter the WTO on favorable terms as it has managed to protect its national interests in the negotiations.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, has a different opinion. He believes WTO membership would not bring any benefits to Russia. In his opinion, many Russian industries will be affected, since the WTO has export quotas. In addition, as a new member of the WTO, Russia will be discriminated against, the parliamentarian believes.
"Today the WTO controls more than 95% of global trade in commodities and services," said Alexei Portansky, head of the Information Office for Russia's accession to the WTO. "Russia is developing fast and is active in foreign trade, and its WTO membership will mean its readiness to compete on the global markets under civilized international rules." In addition, Portansky said, Russia will obtain an effective mechanism for resolving trade disagreements with other countries. Among other things, it will be able to contest the unauthorized export limitations and other instances of discrimination against Russian businesses.
If Russia joins the WTO, it will commit itself to reducing tariffs on the import of foreign cars from 25% to 15% and those on aircraft from 20% to 10% within the first seven years. In addition, Russians will be able to buy better foreign electronic appliances and computers at affordable prices.
However, Russia has retained the right to maintain meat quotas until 2009 and to extend them if necessary. As to the state support for agricultural producers, the amount of subsidies will soon be discussed during multilateral negotiations.
At the summit in Hanoi, Russia and the United States agreed to resume work at the multilateral level in Geneva with the participation of the other members of the working group on Russia's accession to the WTO. Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref believes the negotiations may be completed by mid-2007.
