MOSCOW, May 22 (RIA Novosti) - Accession to the World Trade Organization is in Russia's interests not least because it could gain about $19 billion from the move, a senior European official said Monday.
Kimmo Sasi, rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the economic situation in Russia, said in a report that WTO membership could substantially strengthen the status of other members of the organization and would be in the interests of the Russian Federation itself.
He said Russia would gain an estimated $19 billion from joining the WTO, which would, furthermore, improve the living standards of virtually all sections of the population, adding that it would also liberalize markets and provide broad access for foreign investors to the country's telecoms, banking, transport and insurance sectors, while tariffs would be halved.
In addition, the rapporteur said Russia's accession to the WTO would give it a better legal position if it had to deal with anti-dumping procedures.
Sasi said all of that combined would enable Russia to compensate substantially for a possible loss in labor efficiency that could result from reduction in state subsidies for Russian enterprises in the agro-industrial complex and on foreign markets.
