The Russian Ministry for Economic Development and Trade has confirmed that there is no chance of Russia’s accession to the WTO this year

At the same time officials did not rule out entry in 2004. So far, the WTO member-states and Russia have failed to eliminate disagreements on issues such as pricing polices for the energy sector and agriculture, as well as currency control legislation. Deputy head of the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade and Russia’s top negotiator on the WTO entry, Maxim Medvedkov, confirmed this week that this year Russia would not join the organization. Russia has now parted ways with Ukraine, its closest partner in accession talks to the World Trade Organization. President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma said earlier that Ukraine still hopes to gain admission before the end of 2003, whereas Russia confirmed its course for the development of the domestic processing industry. For that WTO entry and free competition are not so necessary for Russian producers. In principle, certain experts said earlier that plans by German Gref’s agency to speed up accession to the WTO was erroneous. In the opinion of Gref’s opponents, entry could be successful if the country had a highly developed processing industry and high exports of hi-tech products. It is common knowledge that the situation in those sectors leaves much to be desired, which President Putin again mentioned in his state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly this year.