STOCKHOLM — Russia remains committed to joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and wanted to complete membership talks “soon”, the Russian ambassador to the European Union (EU), Vladimir Chizhov, said yesterday.
“We confirm that WTO entry remains our goal,” Chizhov told reporters in Stockholm yesterday after a meeting between Russian Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton. She said that Russia wanted “fast completion” of the discussions.
Russia, which earlier sought to enter the WTO together with Belarus and Kazakhstan as a customs union, will now seek to join on its own. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in June that the country will try to join the WTO together with its two neighbours.
The two former soviet states will now join the WTO as nations “but in a synchronised manner on the basis of common negotiating positions”, Chizhov said.
In September Putin called for trade concessions, including an “intensification” of WTO talks, following US President Barack Obama’s decision to abandon a missile shield in Eastern Europe. Russia has received indications from the US that it may be able to join the WTO as early as next year, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on September 22. Russia is the largest economy outside the WTO.
Ashton said yesterday that Russia could become a member of the Geneva-based trade arbiter on its own, before Belarus and Kazakhstan, after she was told by Nabiullina that Russia wanted to join the WTO “quickly”. “We’ve been saying there are different ways to come in — Russia can still come in and the others can follow,” Ashton told Bloomberg TV.
“It is important for our trade relations, and for theirs, and we will support them.”
Nabiullina pledged in June to complete Russia’s bid to join the WTO next year.
The EU is Russia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 52% of trade volume last year, or 382bn, an almost five-fold increase since 2002, according to the Russian economy ministry. Energy resources make up 70% of Russian exports to the bloc, and Russia accounts for more than 40% of Europe’s gas imports, a figure that will rise to 60% in 2030, the European Commission says.
Chizhov said Ukraine, through which much of Europe’s gas from Russia is exported, will need “external financing” to pay for its gas supplies next year.
The EU is ready to “stimulate” the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund to provide loans to Ukraine, he said.