Russia faces “difficult” talks with the European Union before it can join the World Trade Organization because of its rising timber export duties, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in a speech on Tuesday. The European Union has yet to give its approval for Russia’s WTO membership, largely because of its complaints about rising Russian export duties on raw timber, which hurt paper and pulp producers among its Nordic member-states, Sweden and Finland, both big importers of Russian timber as a raw material. Nordic producers reportedly fear that Moscow is using the duties to make exports unprofitable in an effort to force foreign companies to move at least some of their wood-processing capacity to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed export duties on raw timber in 2007 in order to promote the development of the wood-processing industry. The duties are scheduled to rise to 25 percent from 20 percent on April 1, one of a series of planned export duty increases. Russia is the world’s largest economy outside the WTO.
“The WTO accession talks are nearing conclusion,” said Kudrin, who heads the Russian government’s WTO commission. “There is intense work going on. Officials from the United States and the European Union are constructively working with us.” Kudrin did not provide a date for Russia’s expected accession to the trade body. Kudrin plans to travel next week to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the other three nations, in addition to the European Union, with which Russia has yet to conclude bilateral WTO-related negotiations. Georgia, a former member-state of the Soviet Union, is the third country that has yet to conclude such talks with Russia.
Journal of Commerce
