WTO is eager to accept Russia?

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WTO is eager to accept Russia?

Every year Russian exporters have 2.5 billion dollar losses because of restrictions other countries (including the EU members) apply to them, Said Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture Alexei Gordeev.

"Such huge losses are caused by about 90 restricting measures applied to Russian goods", Gordeev said at "East-West" XI International Agriculture Forum in Berlin on January 17, RIA-Novosti information agency reports. The Forum is conducted as a part of International Fair Exhibition "Green Week", and the Russian Minister was speaking on the issue of "Global trade - prospects for the extended European Union and its new neighbors".

According to Gordeev, for the 11 months of 2003 importing food and products for producing food to Russia grew 11 percent and reached the level of 9.9 billion US dollars. For the same period of time, Russian exporting food and agriculture products grew 23 percent in comparison with 2002 and had the volume of 2.4 billion US dollars, the Minister said.

Gordeev reminded the fact that in 2003 Russia set quotas for importing beef, pork and poultry. "The quotas resulted from increasing import of such products subsidized by the countries-exporters, to Russia", he said. According to Gordeev, "this import influenced negatively the price of the same product of local manufacturers and suppressed Russia"s domestic food industry". "Of course these are forced measures, and we are working on improving the mechanisms of regulation agricultural trade", the Deputy Prime Minister said.

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WTO is eager to accept Russia?