MOSCOW, April 4 (RIA Novosti) - A Soviet-era amendment restricting trade with Russia will be lifted in the near future to improve bilateral ties, a U.S. top trade official said Wednesday.
The 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which restricted trade with the former Soviet Union over human rights violations, is still in force for Russia, prompting the Kremlin to talk of the country being subject to Cold War prejudice.
Speaking at an investment conference in the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez said the U.S. administration had made it clear that it was willing to lift the amendment in the near future, given that Russia was preparing to join the World Trade Organization, where membership was impossible with such an amendment in place.
Gutierrez, who arrived in Moscow Monday to discuss Russia's bid to join the global trade body and mutual investment, said the decision to rescind the amendment would be adopted by U.S. Congress but did not specify the date.
Moscow has signed bilateral protocols with all but four WTO members and is yet to complete multilateral talks with its trade partners within the organization, which Russia hopes to join by the end of the year.
Russia started talks with Vietnam April 1 and is expected to start bilateral negotiations with Cambodia April 4, Russia's chief WTO negotiator said Sunday.
Russia also needs to resolve a dispute with its former Soviet ally Georgia, which withdrew from the bilateral WTO agreement after Moscow banned key Georgian exports in March 2006, and to sign a protocol with Guatemala.
Russian-American trade has grown briskly in recent years, with U.S. exports to Russia growing at an average of 20 percent annually for the past three years and reaching $4.7 billion in 2006. Foreign direct investment by American companies in Russia is now estimated at $11 billion, or nearly twice as much as three years ago, and Russian at $3 billion.
