U.S. Russia Reach Agreement on Poultry Trade, Aim to Resolve WTO Accession Issues by Fall
June 28 , 2010
WorldTrade/Interactive
After a full day of meetings in Washington June 24, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said they hope to resolve by the end of September the remaining bilateral issues concerning Russia’s longstanding bid to join the World Trade Organization. Though neither president explicitly said so, it appears that what they called a “renewed energy” toward meeting this goal was spurred by an agreement by Russia, once the largest foreign market for U.S. poultry producers, to again begin accepting imports of U.S. poultry.
In a joint statement, the U.S. and Russia said they will “undertake the most vigorous possible efforts in the coming months,” both with respect to each other and with other WTO members, to “build and sustain the momentum towards completing the remaining steps” in Russia’s accession process. Obama said these steps involve “difficult” issues that “are going to require some significant work.” The two sides have therefore agreed on approaches to resolve these issues, which they are hoping to achieve by Sept. 30. To this end, the U.S. committed to offer Russia its “full support and best advice in the WTO accession process” while Russia committed to “a government-wide effort to accelerate the adoption of measures that bring the country into conformity with WTO norms, in keeping with customary procedures for accession to the WTO.”
The WTO statement followed an agreement that will permit the resumption of U.S. poultry exports to Russia, a deal Obama called “an important signal” of Russia’s seriousness about achieving WTO membership. As part of this agreement the U.S. will (a) publish information on the Department of Agriculture’s Web site about which disinfectants and pathogen reduction treatments are known to be approved by Russia for use on processing poultry and on food generally, (b) provide information to Russia on the solutions that companies use on poultry shipped to Russia, and (c) give Russia an updated list of poultry processing facilities authorized to ship poultry to Russia. U.S. officials noted that this agreement reopens what has long been the largest export market for U.S. poultry, with shipments valued at $767 million in 2009.
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