OREANDA-NEWS. December 27, 2012. A roundtable, “Russia in the WTO: Results of 2012 and Forecasts for 2013”, has taken place.

CCI of Russia Vice-President Georgy Petrov attended the event on behalf of the Chamber. Representatives of the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly, economists and experts from various economic sectors also participated in the roundtable.

Slightly more than a hundred days have passed since the Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization. The participants observed that it would be premature to speak of serious results. Regularly, cons and pros of the WTO membership become visual within five years.

Yet one thing is already clear: the accession to the WTO was a necessary step, said Director of the Information Bureau for the Russian Entry into the WTO Alexey Portanovsky. Russia needs to seek alternative sources of national wellbeing because trade in energy resources is extremely unprofitable within the WTO.

The speakers also touched upon the farming question. First Deputy Chairman of the Agrarian Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federal Assembly Airat Khairullin said that WTO conditions were advantageous for Russian farmers and proposed cutting grain exports and feeding grain to cattle, like Europe did.

Deputy Chairman of the Economic Policy Committee of the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly Yuri Roslyak stressed that the main question of adaptation of the Russian economy to the WTO was investments and the textile industry experienced the biggest problems. A reason is that Russia does not grow cotton and imported raw materials are very expensive. He urged a broader use of domestic synthetic materials.

The recent membership of Russia in the WTO has become a litmus paper test for problems, which have no direct relation to the World Trade Organization but strongly influence the economic position of the country, CCI of Russia Vice-President Georgy Petrov said. The problems include the lack of an industrial policy and long-term cheap loans for the economy. Actually, such problems must be resolved irrespective of a country’s affiliation to the WTO.

Meanwhile, a transparent and predictable economic policy is an advantage of the WTO membership. Many barriers inside and outside of the country are automatically lifted for Russian entrepreneurs. The rules of the game become clearer. Businessmen have a direct access to the formation of business and investment climate. All the drafts of normative acts and laws are accessible and the business community is free to make remarks and proposals at an early stage, while the government and legislators must bear them in mind. These are the advantages. Speaking of forecasts, several years of the difficult adaptation to the life by the WTO rules are ahead.

There is one more pressing problem, Georgy Petrov stressed, that is the shortage of personnel to represent and defend interests of the country at the WTO. It is necessary to train highly skilled professionals and to do that quickly.

Concerning the customs tariff, one should not think that its reduction due to our accession to the WTO would give foreign commodities - which would be serious rivals of Russian goods - a ticket to our market. The customs tariff is just one of the factors, which determine the market cost of a product, Georgy Petrov stressed. Sometimes, the currency exchange rate is a much more important regulator of imports and exports. At the same time, the reduction of tariffs would be substantial for a number of commodities, and government measures cushioning possible negative effects are bound to play a big role.

While answering together with other roundtable participants the media question about the cancellation of quotas on Russian ferrous metal supply to the European Union and the United States, Georgy Petrov stressed, the quotas must be terminated in accordance with the WTO norms and rules. It is necessary to hold consultations and to make lawful demands of their cancellation. Russian experts must insist that the quotas completely disagree with the WTO rules.

Regarding Russian automobile scrapping duties (which, in the opinion of some countries, must be liquidated), Georgy Petrov believes that foreign partners have a poor knowledge of the issue. The scrapping duty is levied both on imported cars and on vehicles manufactured in Russia, which means there is no discrimination and nothing disagrees with the WTO norms and rules, which our experts must prove at Geneva negotiations.

Actually, the keen attention of WTO partners to Russia is clear and understandable: Russia is a novice at the organization but it is also a rather serious actor on the global economic scene.