Stories

Preparing Russia’s businesses for WTO challenges

26 September 2012
ITC News
With Russia now firmly within the WTO family, a new paper aims to bring the country’s SMEs up to speed with the new reality.

As part of accession of the Russian Federation to the World Trade Organization, ITC’s Business and Trade Policy section has sponsored a paper that seeks to increase awareness about the terms of the country’s accession commitments, in particular in the private sector.

The paper, “Russia’s Accession to the WTO: Major Commitments, Possible Implications”, is written by a team from the Faculty of Economics at St Petersburg State University that was led by Professor Sergey F. Sutyrin, Head of the World Economy Department and the WTO Chair holder. Businesses could use the information in the paper to position themselves to take advantage of the new trade opportunities that arise, as well as cope with new challenges.

“Major Commitments, Possible Implications” provides insights into the terms of Russia’s accession to the WTO in the area of trade in goods and services, as well as reforms undertaken. The paper also looks at more ‘sensitive aspects’ of the negotiations, with sections on business implications of Russia’s WTO accession commitments in the car manufacturing, meat processing, financial services, and energy services sectors.

Background

On 16 December 2011, the Eight Ministerial conference of the WTO (which is the highest body of the WTO) formally approved through unanimous voting the accession package of the Russian Federation to the WTO. The country formally joined the WTO on 22 August.

Before that, Russia had been negotiating for GATT/WTO membership for more than 18 years. No other member of the WTO needed such a lengthy negotiation period before acceding to the organization. Another record set by Russia is the number of member states (over 60) that participated in the Working Party of Russia’s accession negotiations.

Download “Russia’s Accession to the WTO: Major Commitments, Possible Implications”: English version Russian version.