Roman Gubenko, a Russian negotiator for WTO membership at the EU, Andrey Danilenko, a member of the Public Council of the Russian Ministry for Agriculture, Alexander Korbut, Vice President of the Russian Grain Union, and Yevgeny Korchevoy, Director of the WTO-Inform Analytical Center, have attended a round-table conference and discussed the pros and cons of Russia becoming a WTO member.
Gubenko emphasized that the one year since achieving membership was not enough to get a fair picture of being a member. The Milk Union was the biggest problem throughout the year, because the growth in imports of milk products amounted to 19.6%. Tobacco, vegetables and fish were the main import products.
Danilenko clarified that the problem was not the WTO or membership of the organization. It was a system with harsh competitiveness. Russia joined the system as a weak player, as seen from the imports of dairy products. Russia has a different level of industry support, unlike that of the EU or Belarus. It makes products lose competitive potential. Danilenko predicts that prices for imported products will rise and cases of falsified products will become more common, because production of high-quality milk in Russia dropped by 10%.
Korbut proposed treating life in the WTO as a fact and said that the real picture will only be seen in a few years. He reminded that Russia's support of prices for agricultural products was worse than that of the US. He called for intensification of support which would yield big harvests in a few years. The expert said that debts had grown tremendously in the past year. Imports will continue growing because Russia was unable to fulfil its consumer demands, he assumed.
Korchevoy blamed the WTO for the negative impacts. He clarified that the oil price should have kept everything normal. Joining the organization resulted in a loss of 300 billion rubles (450 billion according to the Ministry for Economic Development). Abstaining from the WTO would have saved 0.5 trillion rubles, the expert believes. Korchevoy added that taxes and interest rates should be lowered and exports encouraged to protect the market.
