WTO – the elusive dream

Russia’s attempt to join WTO this year failed not through its own fault. Successive administrations have been trying to negotiate entry into the organization since 1994.

The EU restated its support for Russia's bid to join the WTO during the Russia-EU summit in Stockholm.

Moscow says it wants the WTO talks to go quickly and to be concluded soon.

“Russia's foreign partners have missed an opportunity to admit Russia to the World Trade Organization, but it meets their interests to do this as soon as possible,” head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin told Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

"We have missed out this year not through our own fault," said Shokhin. He noted that Russia has held WTO admission ambitions longer than all other countries. "Every time, we hear that Russia should enter the WTO before the end of the year. Now we speak already about 2010, but I am afraid that this time it will be the habitual promise again," Shokhin admitted.

The RSPP head assumes that a number of negotiating positions have been coordinated, “for example, the customs tariff and lowering of the railway tariff”, and that there are very profitable things there for the WTO.