Very good news. -- Yoshie <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-russia-trade,1,5324950.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines> Russia and U.S. Trade Deal Stalls By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer
12:38 PM PDT, September 7, 2006 WASHINGTON — U.S. and Russian trade negotiators have failed to overcome obstacles in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, raising the prospect that the effort may drag into 2007. Both sides took tough bargaining positions in public this week. Igor Shuvalov, a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said it might be time to suspend the talks because Russia could not make further concessions. For its part, the Bush administration insists it must reach an agreement that makes significant progress in tackling widespread copyright piracy in Russia and in opening up Russia's market to U.S. exports of agriculture and other products. Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Karan Bhatia told a music industry group Wednesday that the administration was insisting as part of the WTO membership talks that Russia deal with what Bhatia called "a notorious Web site," that he said was stealing from many U.S. music companies. "We have made clear to Russia that improved protection for intellectual property is critical to its joining the WTO and we have specifically raised our concerns with allofmp3.com," Bhatia said in a speech to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The U.S. music industry contends the site, which lets visitors download albums for less than $1, is providing pirated material and should be shut down. Russia, the largest country outside of the WTO, has been trying since 1994 to join the 149-nation group that sets the rules for world trade. However, the talks have been contentious with the United States, the last major country whose approval Russia still needs. Besides the dispute over protection of U.S. copyrights, the two sides are arguing over Russia's agricultural inspection procedures, which the U.S. believes are rigged to keep American products out of the country. Also still in contention are barriers Russia has erected to keep U.S. service companies including banks from doing business in Russia. The two countries had hoped to reach an agreement when President Bush was in Russia in July for this year's Group of Eight economic summit. When that effort failed, officials predicted a deal could be reached by October. However, that goal is also looking increasingly unlikely. Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, refused on Thursday to characterize the status of the talks other than to say, "We are continuing to work." Private trade analysts said they are growing less optimistic that a deal can be reached this year. "My best guess is that there will be a delay. It is very similar to what happened in our talks with the Chinese," said Gary Hufbauer, a senior trade analyst with the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. China joined the WTO in 2001 after a 13-year negotiating effort, with U.S. approval coming last and only after a number of obstacles were cleared away. Hufbauer said his best guess was that U.S. and Russian negotiators may not reach an agreement until the middle of 2007. <http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060905/53547394.html> Russia might freeze WTO accession talks with U.S.-Kremlin aide 20:26 | 05/ 09/ 2006 Print version MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - If no progress is made at Russian-U.S. WTO accession negotiations in the foreseeable future, Moscow could put them on hold, a Putin aide said Tuesday. Russia's bilateral negotiations with the U.S. over its bid to join the world's largest trade body broke down in July over differences on agriculture, specifically meat. This was an unexpected development, since the main point of contention throughout the talks has been the lack of protection for intellectual property rights in Russia. "We have reached a critical point beyond which there may be no further retreat. We cannot give way anymore now. The situation with the United States is about the same: It has also reached a critical point," Igor Shuvalov said. He said the Russian government could make some unconventional decisions on WTO accession, but that there was no desire to join it at any price. "The government may decide to suspend the process and then restart the talks [at a later stage]," he said. He said Russia's WTO negotiations with the U.S. might not be completed by October, as agreed previously. Moscow wanted to sign a protocol with Washington at Russia's debut summit of the Group of Eight nations, but the deadline was moved back to October. The U.S. currently enjoys concessions under agreements signed between the two countries in 2005, which will remain in force until 2009. The agreements raised quotas on U.S. supplies of poultry meat to 1.2 billion metric tons, of beef to 450,000 tons and of pork to 502,000 tons. Gordeyev said the United States earns about $1 billion on poultry meat exports to Russia annually. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry earlier warned that it would review the agreements on meat imports from the U.S. if WTO talks in October were a failure. Minister German Gref sent a letter to the U.S. saying that, pending Russia's accession to the WTO, it would be forced to resume the position it maintained before the agreements on meat imports was reached. Gref also said the Russian government could not, under these conditions, continue ignoring the demands of Russian farmers to revise meat quotas and abolish concessions offered to the U.S. Agriculture Minister Gordeyev said the ministry planned to reduce meat imports to 20% of the market within three years, with the other 80% to be supplied by domestic producers. Experts said imports currently account for 50% of Russia's meat market. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
