Russia faces challenges as WTO member

MOSCOW - Russia faces challenges as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its future depends on how Moscow could cope with the new realities, a senior Russian official said Thursday.

Five months after it became a WTO member, Russia must obey the organization's rules and implement its obligations to the world trade bloc, Pascal Lamy, the country's WTO director general, said at the ongoing international Gaidar Forum.

If some countries believe Russia does not implement its obligations or vice versa, they might launch a legal process to level their differences, Lamy said.

Russia officially joined the WTO on August 22. After the accession, Russia will have to gradually lower its average tariff ceiling to 7.8 percent from the current 10 percent, with the agricultural tariff down from 13.2 percent to 10.8 percent, and the tariff for industrial products slashed from 9.5 percent to 7.3 percent.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has said Russia might not enjoy immediate benefits from its accession to the WTO and could even face serious challenges.

As for the WTO accession process of Russia's partners in the tripartite Customs Union, Lamy said he hopes Kazakhstan could become a WTO member in 2013, although Belarus' prospect is more remote.

"I would suppose that this year Kazakhstan could join WTO," he said.

The Gaidar Forum, named after Yegor Gaidar, Russia's first post-Soviet prime minister, debuted in 2010 and has become a significant gathering of experts and political leaders in Russia.