/ 15 July 2006

No final deal on Russia WTO entry bid

Russian and United States negotiators failed on Saturday in marathon talks to strike a bilateral deal to pave the way for Russia to join the World Trade Organisation, a US trade spokesperson said.

”A final agreement has not been reached, but significant progress was made,” Sean Spicer, spokesperson for US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, told Reuters.

A Kremlin spokesperson said talks would keep going but gave no details. ”The Russian-American negotiations are continuing and will continue,” Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing.

Schwab’s team negotiated into the early hours on Saturday with Russian counterparts headed by Economy Minister German Gref, but could not reach an understanding on admitting US farm produce to the Russian market, a US source said.

Negotiators working virtually non-stop since mid-week had been under pressure to reach a deal before presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin held a working meeting at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg.

It now appeared likely that the presidents would not make any major statements on Russia’s 13-year-old WTO bid, but that negotiations would continue at a later date, the US source said.

Schwab has a heavy schedule of bilateral meetings at the St Petersburg summit. With the stalled Doha round of global trade talks forcing its way onto the agenda, it would be difficult to devote further time to Russia’s WTO aspirations.

Russia is the largest country outside the 149-member trade club, and a bilateral deal with Washington would remove the last major obstacle to its accession.

The talks reached a breakthrough on Thursday on financial services and made some progress on protection of intellectual property rights.

Rampant video and music piracy in Russia has infuriated the US entertainment industry and, ahead of mid-term elections this autumn, leading Congressional Democrats have lobbied against Russia’s WTO bid.

In Washington, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told reporters late on Thursday that Russia must do more on intellectual property rights (IPR) for the two sides to reach a WTO deal.

”We’re looking for a firm commitment from Russia to enforce IPR. They have done some of that. We would like to see a lot more,” he said.

Russian officials have said, however, Washington was setting tough demands and they would not sign a deal at any price. – Reuters