On 16 December 2011, Russia cleared the final hurdle to become a WTO member. WTO Ministers adopted Russia’s WTO terms of entry at the 8th Ministerial Conference in Geneva. Trade Ministers welcomed Russia as a new member to the Organization and called this accession a historic achievement. According to WTO Ministers, Russia’s accession to the WTO will strengthen the multilateral trading system, making the WTO a more universal organization.

As part of the accession accord, Russia has agreed to undertake a series of important commitments to further open its trade regime and accelerate its integration in the world economy. The deal offers a transparent and predictable environment for trade and foreign investment. From the date of accession, the Russian Federation has committed to fully apply all WTO provisions, with recourse to very few transitional periods.

The Russian Federation’s commitments will include the following:

Market access for goods and services

As part of the accession, Russia concluded 30 bilateral agreements on market access for services and 57 on market access for goods. Russia has agreed to lower its tariffs on a wide range of products. The Russian Federation has made specific commitments on 11 services sectors and on 116 sub-sectors. Export duties would be fixed for over 700 tariff lines, including certain products in the sectors of fish and crustaceans, mineral fuels and oils, raw hides and skins, wood, pulp and paper and base metals.

General commitments on market access

Quantitative restrictions on imports, such as quotas, bans, permits, prior authorization requirements, licensing requirements or other requirements or restrictions that could not be justified under the WTO provisions would be eliminated and not (re) introduced.

No licenses would be required for imports of more than a dozen encryption technology products (the list includes electronic digital signature devices, personal smart-cards or wireless radio equipment). No new restrictions, including experts’ evaluations, approvals, and licenses, would be adopted or applied. For those encryption technology related products needing an import license, expert evaluation and approval would only be needed once.

Products including alcohol, wood and meat would be subject to measures requiring their declaration and/or entry at designated customs checkpoints. Any measures contrary to the WTO Agreement would be eliminated as of the date of accession. The Russian Federation would not apply country-specific customs procedures.

The Russian Federation would apply all its laws, regulations and other measures governing transit of goods (including energy) in conformity with GATT and WTO provisions. The Russian Federation would review market access requirements for the establishment of direct branches of foreign banks and securities firms in the context of future negotiations on the accession of the Russian Federation to the OECD or within the framework of the next round of WTO multilateral trade negotiations.

Industrial and agricultural subsidies

The Russian Federation would eliminate all its industrial subsidies programmes or modify them so that any subsidy provided would not be contingent upon exportation or upon the use of domestic over imported goods.

The total trade distorting agricultural support would not exceed USD 9 billion in 2012 and would be gradually reduced to USD 4.4 billion by 2018.

The VAT exemption applied to certain domestic agricultural products would be eliminated upon accession.

Pricing of energy

Producers and distributors of natural gas in the Russian Federation would operate on the basis of normal commercial considerations, based on recovery of costs and profit. The Russian Federation would continue to regulate price supplies to households and other non-commercial users, based on domestic social policy considerations.