MOSCOW, October 18 (RIA Novosti) - Alexei Kudrin, Russian vice-premier and finance minister, said Thursday he had been appointed to head a government commission on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"Today a government meeting has taken the decision to assign government commissions to ministers, vice-premiers and the prime minister... I have been assigned the task to chair the government commission for WTO accession," Kudrin said.
Russia has been seeking WTO membership since the early 1990s and needs to complete bilateral talks with those WTO members still having trade issues with Moscow, as well as finishing multilateral discussions within the WTO Working Party of 50 nations.
The latest round of talks on Russia's WTO bid was held in Geneva in late July and focused on customs regulations and free trade zones. Russia's state agricultural subsidies were also high on the agenda. WTO members consider Russia's projected subsidies of $9.2 billion per year to be excessive.
However, President Vladimir Putin said during his annual question and answer session on Thursday that Russia will maintain subsidies for agriculture for a long time to come.
"We shall enter the WTO only on acceptable terms. Our negotiators have secured these conditions, in particular, subsidies for agriculture. This will be a rather lengthy transitional period, during which we'll retain the right to agriculture subsidies," Putin said.
Putin said these measures would enable Russian agricultural companies to enter the world market.
