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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced on 10 June that Russia was abandoning its 16-year quest for WTO membership as an individual country. Instead, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will start a new accession process as a single customs union next year. Both Belarus and Kazakhstan have sought to join the WTO for more than a decade, but their accession processes are far less advanced than that of their mighty neighbour. The unprecedented joint bid could delay all three countries’ WTO entry for several years.
Russian officials suggested that restarting the talks as a three-nation bloc would stimulate economic integration in the former Soviet Union, a longtime Putin priority. Many Western analysts, however, saw the surprise move as a sign of Russia’s growing frustration with the tortuous accession process, and some speculated that it could be a ploy to force a quick deal.
Just days before Mr Putin’s announcement, the EU and Russia had made significant progress on the thorniest bilateral issues in the accession negotiations, and Russia’s Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton had agreed that the negotiations should be completed this year. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk also said there had been progress, although he expressed some doubts about wrapping up the negotiations by December. The US is particularly concerned about Russia’s use of sanitary regulations to keep out imports of US beef, pork and chicken.
Up to now, the EU and the US have supported Russia’s WTO bid, which would bring the country within legally binding multilateral commitments. As a member of the G-20 major economies group, Russia is in principle bound by the promise to avoid protectionist measures (see page 11), but since November 2008, the government has raised import duties to 15-20 percent on iron and steel products, 30 percent on cars and 25 percent on trucks and buses, and has threatened to raise tariffs on a raft of other goods ranging from shoes to furniture.
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